MANILA, Philippines — Metropolitan Manila Development Chairman Benhur Abalos said 6.2 million or around 63% of the eligible population to receive vaccines in the National Capital Region have completed their doses against COVID-19.
In an interview with TeleRadyo, Abalos said Metro Manila has 14 million residents and around 9.8 million of them are eligible to receive vaccines. Of these, more than 6.2 million are now fully vaccinated, while around 86% are waiting for their second jabs.
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The other 30% are those who are 17 years old and below, and are yet to be approved to be inoculated with jabs with COVID-19.
Abalos said they are looking to having 80% of eligible Metro Manila residents to be fully vaccinated by October
“If we’re looking at one month from now, it could be 79 to 80 percent of the entire Metro Manila,” he said partly in Filipino.
Metro Manila, which is on Alert Level 4 in a five-tiered system, on Friday enters its second day of the two-week pilot implementation of granular lockdowns of identified areas.
Under the new system, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases empowered mayors to restrict movements in identified individual houses, residential buildings, streets, blocks, puroks, subdivisions and/or villages within their jurisdiction.
The MMDA chair appealed to residents to extend understanding when their areas are placed in lockdowns.
“Please, don’t be angry with your mayors. We are really strict in implementing this. This is for all of us,” Abalos said in Filipino.
He also maintained that there will be no prior announcements before an area is placed in lockdown to avoid further spread of the coronavirus. “If we announce that there will be a lockdown, residents will really leave the area, and [the coronavirus] will spread,” he added.
Health authorities on Thursday logged 21,621 new COVID-19 infections, pushing national viral caseload to 2,304,912. Of these, 177,946 are deemed as active cases.
Latest data from the National COVID-19 Vaccination Dashboard shows that as of September 16, 17,977,462 Filipinos have completed their COVID-19 vaccines, while 22,541,383 are waiting for their second jabs. — Kristine Joy Patag