The government has to inoculate at least 6 million people in Metro Manila before it could see a significant reduction in the number of coronavirus cases (COVID-19) cases by the end of the year, OCTA Research fellow Fr. Nicanor Austriaco said on Monday, May 10.

The professor of biology and theology at Providence College in the United States (US), cited data from Israel, the United Kingdom, and the US, which shows that 45 to 50 percent of the population need to be vaccinated "to see the effect" on the number of COVID infections.

" means that here in the NCR (National Capital Region), we will have to vaccinate about six million people of our 12 million people here before we see a substantial effect on the number of cases," Austriaco said during the Laging Handa public briefing on Monday.

"Given the government’s vaccine strategy and vaccine campaign, we hopefully will begin to see this probably in the third, fourth quarter of this year," he added.

Based on the data of the Department of Health, over two million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have already been administered nationwide as of May 4.

Those who received their first doses were workers in frontline health services totaling 1,114,345; senior citizens, 329,650; individuals with comorbidity, 293,312; and frontline personnel in the essential sector, 7,342.

More than 320,000 Filipinos have also completed their second doses.

Of this, 284,065 are workers in frontline health services; 4,966 are senior citizens, and 31,555 are individuals with comorbidity.

Austriaco said OCTA will release its modeling data this week that will show that proposals to focus the government's vaccination strategy on the NCR will help "accelerate the healing that we have as well as to decrease the total cases in the country."

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