In the fourth and final quarter of 2021, the national government will try to administer one million to 1.5 million coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines daily to achieve its target of inoculating 77 million Filipinos by year end.
Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr., vaccine czar and chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, said in a statement Saturday night, Oct. 23, that the government could not scale up the national vaccination output "if we just settle with our current jab rate."
"Our goal is for LGUs to inoculate 70 percent of their eligible population with at least one dose by November," he said. The current daily jab rate ranges from 400,000 to 500,000 doses.
Last Friday, Galvez met with several governors and mayors to relay President Duterte's directive for LGUs to scale up their vaccination rates. There, he identified at least 50 highly urbanized cities (HUCs) that will take the lead in pushing the country’s daily vaccination output to 1.5 million doses.
The HUCs will be prioritized in the government’s vaccine deployment because they have the capacity to inoculate larger populations as quickly as possible, can store all types of vaccines, and their areas are economic centers that are essential in the reopening of their region’s economy, Galvez explained.
"Our cases are already plateuing recently just 400,000 to 500,000 jabs daily. If this will continue, hindi natin makukuha ang (we won't achieve) 50 million by year-end," he noted.
To date, the country has received a total of 94,678,340 doses of COVID 19 vaccines.
Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje, head of the National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC), bared that a total of 75,804,550 doses have been deployed to various regions as of October 21.
More than 18.4 million doses were deployed to the National Capital Region (NCR), around 11.2 million doses were sent to CALABARZON (Region 4A), and nine million doses were dispatched to Central Luzon (Region 3).
As of October 23, a total of 55,506,176 doses have already been administered nationwide.
A total of 25,614,366 Filipinos have been fully vaccinated which represents 33.21 percent of the country's target population.
The Philippines aims to fully inoculate 77 million individuals (77 percent) of its total population of 110 million to achieve herd immunity by the end of 2021.