President Duterte has officially announced the second round of national vaccination days, which will take place before Christmas.
"We will have a second round of 'Bayanihan, Bakunahan' from Dec. 15 to 17," Duterte said Monday, Dec. 6 during the slightly delayed airing of his "Talk to the People" public briefing from Malacañang.
The first Bayanihan, Bakunahan event---which also lasted for three days--took place from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1.
The campaign was part of the national government's efforts to vaccinate as many Filipinos as possible against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) especially those residing outside the National Capital Region (NCR), which already has a high vaccination rate.
"I hope that would have the same success, but this time lesser because parang naubos na natin ang Pilipino sa what counts sa bakuna. Kaya medyo there is a slowdown of the COVID-19 (it's like we've already run out of Filipinos eligible for the jab. There's why there's a slowdown of the COVID-19), Duterte said.
Some 8.01 million Filipinos were given COVID-19 shots during the first round of Bayanihan, Bakunahan.
This was viewed as a success by Malacañang even if the figure fell below its adjusted target of nine million jabs. The government's initial target for the campaign was a rather lofty 15 million jabs.
The Philippines started its mass inoculation program against COVID-19 on March 1, 2021. The country is currently enjoying a massive downtrend in daily new cases of the deadly disease.