The national vaccination program against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has regained its momentum as cases continued to be on a downward trend.
Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr., vaccine czar and chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, said 628,099 doses were administered on Wednesday, Oct. 6, which was almost double than the previous daily rates which averaged from 350,000 to 400,000.
Even better was the record by the NTF in its virtual dashboard which showed that 992,665 doses were administered last Tuesday.
"Bumalik na po sa sigla ang ating vaccination (Our vaccination program has regained its momentum)," Galvez said at President Duterte's "Talk to the People" public address.
Currently, a total of 47.7 million doses were already administered nationwide. More than 25.3 million Filipinos have received a single shot of vaccine while 22.4 million others have been fully vaccinated.
The vaccination program slowed down in the previous weeks after the country battled its worst surge due to the spread of the Delta variant.
Healthcare workers serving as vaccinators had to go back to the hospitals to take care of the sick, some of them got infected, while local chief executives shifted their focus on implementing granular lockdowns to prevent the spread of the virus instead of ramping up the vaccination.
But after the strict implementation of granular lockdowns and health protocols, the surge started to slow down.
Independent research group OCTA noted a decline in the number of cases recently as the national reproduction rate dropped to 0.76 percent on Wednesday.
After regaining the momentum in the vaccination program, the government now seeks to administer one million doses or more daily to fully vaccinate around 35 million individuals by the end of 2020.
The government raised the target eligible population that it intends to inoculate from 77 million, or 70 percent of the 110 million total population in the country, to around 88 million (80 percent) to 99 million (90 percent) due to the effects of Delta.
Galvez had said that the adjusted target is eyed to be achieved before the 2022 elections to protect the voting population.