Philippines has administered 10 million jabs

CEBU, Philippines — National Task Force Against COVID-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez yesterday said that the Philippines has unlocked a key milestone in its vaccination campaign after breaching the 10 million mark in number of total shots administered.

“We have achieved a significant milestone, though nakita natin ‘yung 10 million is still small compared sa ating 70 million target. But we will make sure that population protection can be achieved in the NCR before December time,” Galvez said.

As of June 27, a total of 10,065,414 doses have been given nationwide, broken down as follows: 7,538,128 first doses and 2,527,286 second doses.

Galvez also reported that healthcare workers under A1 priority have already achieved 100% vaccination, at least for the first dose.

“Now that 100 percent of our healthcare workers have received their first vaccine doses, we are confident to complete the vaccination of their priority group soon and open up our vaccine program to other sectors,” Galvez said.

Galvez also disclosed that the government has administered over 1.4 million jabs in the past two weeks, surpassing its initial target of 1 million shots per week.

He said once a larger volume of vaccine shipments arrives from different manufacturers starting in July, the government will be able to vaccinate at least 10 million per month.

“We can easily vaccinate 6 to 8 million once na naging steady ang supply natin makapag-vaccinate tayo ng even 10 million a month,” Galvez said.

Last Monday, June 28, the country received an additional supply of one million CoronaVac doses, bringing the country’s total supply of Sinovac-made vaccines to 12 million.

Cebu City

The Cebu City government is expected to be unable to resume its COVID-19 vaccination today since no additional vaccines  arrived at the City Health Office yesterday, according to City Health officer-in-charge Jeffrey Ibones and Councilor David Tumulak.

“Actually, niingon ang DOH karon unta nya wa nasad moabot. Hopefully, ugma (today),” said Ibones.

With this, Ibones said all vaccination centers will remain closed today.

“Kung moabot ang bakuna ugma, we will resume right away. Inig ka Thursday, sugod dayon ta,” he said.

Ibones is yet to confirm if all five vaccination sites — the University of Cebu-Banilad, UC in J. Alcantara Street, Robinsons Galleria, SM Seaside, and the NOAH Complex will be opened since it will also depend on the total allocation the city will receive.

Tumulak is urging the almost 100,000 individuals who were already vaccinated to help encourage others to register online through pabakunata.com.

He said they can also help with the registration of individuals who are willing to be vaccinated but do not know how to register online.

Tumulak said the online registration is important because the DOH will base the vaccine allocation for the city on the masterlist provided.

More for Cebu

DOH-7 spokesperson Dr. Van Phillip Baton said that 68,440 doses of Sinovac arrived in Cebu yesterday but there was no word yet as to the number of doses to be distributed to the different LGUs in Central Visayas.

With the arrival of this new batch of vaccine, DOH-7 has already received a total of 874,120 doses of various COVID-19 vaccines.

As of June 28, 2021, a total of 375,181 vaccine doses have been administered across all public and private sector vaccination centers in Cebu out of the 1,707,117 persons eligible for vaccination.

So far, 286,995 individuals in Cebu have been administered with the first dose while 88,186 individuals have received the second dose.

In terms of number of doses administered (both first dose and second dose) per local government unit, Cebu City has the most number of vaccinees with 148,005; Cebu Province, 109,168; Mandaue City, 79,231; Lapu-Lapu City, 38,777. — Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon and Mary Ruth R. Malinao, JMD (FREEMAN)