Cities and municipalities that have reached their target vaccination coverage against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) need to strengthen their booster vaccination program to ensure that the protection of the people will be sustained.

This was the reminder issued by vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. on Tuesday night, Jan. 4, as he cautioned against the supposed false sense of security in some areas that have high vaccination rate.

He said the effectivity of vaccines wear off after a couple of months which is why it should be followed up with a booster dose.

“Sometimes nagkakaroon po ng false sense of security ang mga highly vaccinated cities (Sometimes, there was a false sense of security in highly vaccinated areas),” he said in a Cabinet meeting with President Duterte on Tuesday night, Jan. 4.

In the National Capital Region (NCR), Galvez said around 10.4 million out of the total 12.6 million eligible population were already fully vaccinated.

However, only 580,000 individuals have so far received booster shots while around 3.8 million have recently obtained thwir second dose which afford them high protection against the coronavirus.

This means that around 6.5 million people "are not fully protected anymore."

“We just want to remind key cities more than 100 percent or 70 percent vaccination coverage that we need to revisit our realities that our people’s protection should be further expanded and enhanced through the administration of boosters,” the vaccine czar explained.

The Department of Health (DOH) earlier shortened the interval between the two-dose primary series of vaccination and booster shot from six months to three months; and the single-dose primary series and booster short from three months to two months.