It will be a better Christmas for Filipinos this year as more than 93 million people have already been vaccinated against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the National Task Force Against COVID-19 declared on Thursday, Dec. 9.

Of the figure, a total of 10,254,560 of them were given during the five-day national vaccination drive by the national government which started on November 29, according to Sec. Carlito Galvez, NTF Against COVID-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar, said

"With the major milestones achieved under the country’s national vaccination program, a better Christmas for all Filipinos is now at hand this year," said Galvez.

"If you would recall, President Duterte made a promise of a better Christmas this year. With the continuous decline in COVID-19 cases wherein the positivity rate is now less than three percent, we are certain that the promise of the President will be fulfilled," he added.

The aggressive vaccination initiated by the national government was considered by health experts as the game changer in the country's response on the pandemic. It resulted in the decline of COVID cases nationwide and also elevated the global ranking of the Philippines in terms of COVID response.

The Philippines has recorded an average daily caseload of below 500 over the past several days, which is a significant drop from the thousands of daily cases registered during the surge of Delta variant infections just a few months ago.

But with the country’s expanded vaccination rollout and more responsive pandemic response and mitigation measures, the government has managed to bring down the nation’s infection rate to a threshold set by the World Health Organization.

As of December 7, the Philippines has already administered a total of 93,687,341 vaccine doses. Of this number, 53,841,469 have been given as first doses while 39,236,194 are now fully vaccinated.

Galvez said he is confident the Philippines will achieve population protection before the year ends by realizing its target of fully vaccinating at least 54 million Filipinos.

The national government earlier announced that it is mounting another leg of NVD from December 15 to 17 as part of its efforts to further scale up the vaccination throughput of local government units nationwide.

Galvez said he is hopeful that government line agencies, LGUs (local government units) and private sector partners will be able to replicate the success of the first NVD so that more Filipinos will be protected nationwide against the virus.