38% of Filipinos fully vaccinated against COVID-19, less than 1% receive booster

MANILA, Philippines — Some 41.5 million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus since the government launched its inoculation campaign in March.

This is equivalent to 38.07% of the population — a long way from the 90% that health authorities say must be fully vaccinated to attain herd immunity. 

Meanwhile, 809,550 people or 0.74% of the population have received a booster shot since they were first rolled out by the government in November. 

Another 50.36 million or 54.91% of Filipinos have received the first dose, according to the Department of Health's vaccination dashboard. 

Authorities administered an average of 640,637 jabs daily in the last week, less than half their target of 1.5 million. 

Galvez: 24M more vaccines arriving this week

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. during a taped meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte and other members of the pandemic task force on Monday said the government is expecting some 24 million vaccines to be delivered this week. 

"This is assurance that we can expand our booster [dose rollout and], at the same time...that our vaccines will be complete until the middle of the year of 2022," he said partially in Filipino. 

Some 1.53 million doses of the Janssen vaccine donated by the Dutch government and another 859,950 Pfizer shots procured by the Philippines arrived in the country on December 13. — Bella Perez-Rubio