Philippines daily vaccination rate again breaches 1 million

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines’ national vaccination program continues to gain momentum as the daily vaccination rate breached the one million mark twice within the past week, National Task Force against COVID-19 strategic communications and current operations head Wilben Mayor said over the weekend.

“On Nov. 10, our countrymen who were vaccinated was one million and on Nov. 11, there are 1.2 million vaccinated. We are seeing the trend in the increase of Filipinos who are having themselves vaccinated,” Mayor said.

He congratulated the local government units (LGUs) throughout the country, particularly the cities of Baguio and Iloilo, for ramping up their vaccination and achieving high inoculation rates.

Mayor made the statement as he led government officials in welcoming 1,279,000 doses of procured Moderna vaccines on Saturday at NAIA Terminal 1. Also present were US embassy political counselor Kenneth Gardner, Health Undersecretary Ma. Carolina Vidal-Taiño and Zuellig Pharma market managing director Jannette Jakosalem.

To date, a total of 123,258,340 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been delivered to the Philippines since February.

National Vaccination Days

The government is looking at using classrooms as inoculation sites for the National Vaccination Days against COVID-19 from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1, which aim to administer 1.5 million jabs a day, the Philippine Medical Association (PMA) said yesterday.

According to PMA president Benito Atienza, they are now coordinating with the Department of Education to allow the use of classrooms as vaccination centers. Some 5,000 medical interns are also expected to participate in the program.

“Currently, we have almost 8,000 vaccination centers and this will be increased to 11,000. This will include those in the National Capital Region,” Atienza said, adding that hospitals will also be used in vaccinating people with comorbidities. – Mayen Jaymalin, Rudy Santos