MANILA, Philippines — The government will reach its COVID-19 vaccination target for last year in the first week of January, an official from the National Task Force against COVID-19 said Monday.
The government failed to reach its already lowered goal of fully vaccinating at least 54 million Filipinos by the end of 2021. Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier said the target could have been reached if not for Typhoon Odette (Rai), the most destructive cyclone that hit the country last week.
Latest data from the government showed that 49.85 million people have completed inoculation against COVID-19 since March. Meanwhile, 57.15 million individuals have received partial protection.
Over 1.84 million have received booster shots.
“We are pushing and we are confident that we will achieve the 54 million target in the first week of January,” NTF deputy chief implementer Vince Dizon said in Filipino.
“We know the struggles that various regions faced, especially [Central Visayas, Western Visayas], and other parts of Mindanao due to Typhoon Odette. So we need to cope with that,” he added.
According to Dizon, the government is also targeting to fully vaccinate 70 million people by the end of February or early March.
Officials are calling on the unvaccinated to get jabbed against COVID-19 as the country sees a renewed increase in infections that is believed to be driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant.
The Philippines reported Monday 4,084 additional infections, bringing the total number of active cases to 24,992. — Gaea Katreena Cabico