The country has so far administered a total of 52,783,354 doses of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines seven months after it launched the national inoculation program, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. bared Tuesday night, Oct. 19.
Galvez, vaccine czar and chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, said 28,284,601 individuals have received their first dose while 24,498,753 others were fully vaccinated.
He said the fully vaccinated individuals represent 31.76 percent of the 77 million eligible population that is targeted to be inoculated by the end of 2021 to achieve herd immunity.
Meanwhile, the National Capital Region (NCR) has fully vaccinated 7,897,782 residents (80.78 percent) out of the 9,776,356 total eligible population while 9,077,651 (92.85 percent) have received their first dose.
"Talagang napakalaki po ang nagawa po ng NCR at ito po ay isang ehemplo para makita po ng mga ibang regions (The NCR really did well and it is worthy of emulation for other regions). Other regions are now catching up with the delivery of more vaccines to the provinces," Galvez said at President Duterte's "Talk to the People" public address.
Six other regions have also scaled up their vaccination programs namely Calabarzon (Region 4A), Central Luzon (Region 3), Central Visayas (Region 7), Western Visayas (Region 6), Davao Region (Region 11), and Northern Mindanao (Region 10). The said regions have fully vaccinated around 25 to 31 percent of their total eligible population.
Meanwhile, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) was at an alarming level since it has only fully vaccinated 283,110 individuals (9.47 percent) of its total 2,989,135 eligible population. Only 198,042 residents (6.63 percent) have also reeived their first dose.
"We are now raising the daily target to 1.5 million a day in order to achieve a happy Christmas this year. We will be opening the general population, then the pilot of children vaccination, and we are ramping up the vaccination of students, teachers, and tourism personnel, OFWs , and seafarers," Galvez said.