The Philippines has administered 29.1 million doses of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine, with over 12 million individuals already fully vaccinated against the disease, National Task Force Deputy Chief Implementer Vince Dizon said Thursday, Aug. 19.
"Ina-anticipate po natin sa end of the week, August 20, aabot na po tayo ng 30 million doses jabs. Ang ibig pong sabihin nito, sa loob lamang ng dalawmpung araw ng buwan ng Agosto, nakasampung milyon po tayo (We anticipate that by the end of the week, August 20, we will reach 30 million doses jabs. This means that in just twenty days in the month of August, we have already reached ten million doses)," Dizon said in a virtual briefing.
Dizon noted that the national government aims to administer 15 million COVID-19 shots in the month of August.
About 3.2 million COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered in Metro Manila this month, according to Dizon.
He said Metro Manila's daily jab average at 178,000 doses in August, up from 130,000 last July.
Forty-one percent of the eligible population in Metro Manila has been so far fully inoculated as of Aug. 18, added Dizon.
"Dahil po dyan yung tina-target po natin na 50 percent na eligible population ay fully vaccinated, kampante po tayo na maaabot natin yan (Because of that, we are confident that we will able to reach our initial target to fully vaccinate 50 percent of the eligible population in Metro Manila)," Dizon said.
The Philippines has administered a total of 29,127,240 COVID-19 vaccine doses. Of this number, 12,877,197 were fully vaccinated.
He added that the average of COVID-19 tests conducted daily is at 60,000.
"Ito ay tumaas na nung mga nakaraang linggo, nung una ay nag-a-average tayo ng mga 50,000 per day... Kulang pa rin po ito pero marami tayong mga hamon (Our testing has increased in recent weeks, at first we were averaging about 50,000 per day. Of course it's still not enough because we have encountered many challenges)," Dizon said.
"Alam naman natin na pag nagsu-surge maraming nagkakasakit, maraming laboratoyo na mga bumabagal dahil sa mga nagkakasakit natin na medical frontliner sa mga laboratoryo pero pinililit nating itaas pa rin ito nang itaas (We know that when there's a surge, many people get sick, many laboratories slow down because their medical frontliners also get sick, but we will try to still increase our testing capacity."
Dizon added that the government further boosts its daily testing by also using antigen test kits to augment RT-PCR testing.