Quezon City has breached the one million mark in terms of total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered.
The local government on Wednesday announced that as of July 13, a total of 1,013,988 vaccine doses were already administered, 686,311 of which were first dose while 327,677 were second dose.
This means 40.37 percent of the local government's 1.7 million target population got their first dose while 19.28 percent already completed their jab.
"From our police officers who ensure that the vaccine supply is secure from the warehouse to the sites, the doctors, nurses and other medical workers who screen patients and administer the vaccine doses, up to the volunteers who marshal our sites, distribute forms, and clean up after, and the encoders who record our patients' data individually — the continuous success of our program is due to your unwavering efforts. We are truly grateful for your service to our QCitizens,” Mayor Joy Belmonte said in a statement.
The city's vaccination program, called QCProtektado, has been "constantly improving," according to the local government.
It said that "for the past weeks, the vaccination program has consistently reached record-high numbers."
For instance, on June 23, the local government posted a new record by administering more than 45,000 vaccines in just one day.
"The key has always been a whole-of-city approach where all stakeholders, public and private, join hands to collaborate on this program. Through this, we are confident we will reach our goal of population protection in the coming months for as long as vaccine supply stabilizes," Belmonte said.
Joseph Juico, co-chair of the city's Task Force Vax to Normal, assured that the city will continue to expand and improve its inoculation efforts.
"While this achievement is an important milestone for the program, we can only relax once we have inoculated the last QCitizen eligible for the vaccine," she said.
"We can no longer feel the vaccine hesitancy. Instead, what we have now is vaccine envy where people demand that they get vaccinated. However, our problem continues to be the irregular supply of vaccines which we hope will be addressed as the procured and donated supplies arrive regularly into the country," she added.