Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion on Monday, June 21, received his second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine against the coronavirus disease.
Concepcion was vaccinated again through Go Negosyo’s ‘A Dose of Hope’ program after his first inoculation in Pasig City mid-April. He is the founder of Go Negosyo.
READ: Concepcion gets first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine
Go Negosyo is behind the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines for the private sector and local government units. Over two million doses are set to arrive in the country starting July until August this year.
The President’s adviser has encouraged everyone to get vaccinated to attain population protection that could help promote greater mobility for people as well as spur business activities and economic recovery.
The minimum population protection, which the government hopes to achieve by December this year, should be at 40 to 50 million vaccines administered.
Concepcion said he agreed with OCTA Research that the vaccination of the population at 50 percent can be achieved by October for NCR Plus—Metro Manila, Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna, and Cavite.
READ: COVID-19 vaccination key to 'old normal' Christmas — Concepcion
While the government works to achieve goals and milestones in its vaccination program, he noted that the private sector will be consulting with medical experts to work out how the next normal will look like.
“The next normal will be dependent on our ability to achieve these levels of people vaccinated and failure to do so will slow down the opening of the economy,” he said.
Concepcion underscored the need for Filipinos to get their shots, citing the entry of more infectious COVID-19 variants such as the more transmissible Delta variant.
“We need more of everyone's participation to reach the 50 percent vaccination as we cannot fall short of hitting population protection,” he added.
As of June 20, more than 8.4 million total doses have been administered, 6.2 million of which are first doses while 2.1 million are fully vaccinated. The fully vaccinated is equivalent to 1.96 percent of the entire population.