It was literally a shot in the arm of the country’s vaccination rollout as more than 1.115 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was the first tranche of the orders made by the private sector and local government units, arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).
This, along with the earlier arrivals of vaccines, has spurred the vaccination rollout as the country set another daily record in coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccinations.
However, the threat posed by the Delta variant of COVID-19 continued to be a major concern as the Department of Health (DOH) reported detecting 16 new cases of the dreaded variant.
These are among the top stories on this busy Friday afternoon, July 16, 2021.

President Duterte (second from left) and Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Mark A. Villar (second from right) unveil the marker for the 18-kilometer portion of the Central Luzon Link Expressway (CLLEX) from Tarlac City to Aliaga, Nueva Ecija. Also shown at the inauguration on Thursday, July 15, 2021, are Senator Christopher ‘Bong’ Go (left), Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Kazuhiko Koshikawa. (Photo from the DPWH)
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