Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte (center) along with Joseph Juico (left), QC COVID-19 task force head and other local officials pose for a photo at the Quezon City Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory located in Barangay Teachers VIllage East. (FILE) Photo from QC-PAISD
MANILA, Philippines — Quezon City’s local government on Tuesday said that it would need 95,000 Sinovac doses by June for the second dose of its constituents.
This came after Quezon City was able to use the Sinovac vaccines, which were supposed to be allotted for the second dose, to inoculate more people on their first dose.
According to QC COVID-19 Task Force co-chair Joseph Juico, of the 110,400 doses of Sinovac Quezon City received, half of it, or 55,200 doses, were used to inoculate citizens on their first dose.
“Tapos another 40,000 na galing sa 2nd dose na minove namin to first dose,” explained Juico in an interview over ABS-CBN’s TeleRadyo.
(Then another 40,000 from the second dose that we moved to the first dose.)
“So meron kaming natitirang mga 15,200 [na second dose],” he added.
(So we have 15,200 doses left for the second dose.)
Juico explained that Quezon City did this move after the national government assured them that the local government will be receiving more vaccines in the middle of June, which is within the four-week or 28-day interval between the two doses.
As of May 23, Quezon City has administered 309,680 doses of vaccine, 235,052 of which are those who have received the first dose and 74,560 are those who completed the two doses.
This number accounts to around 14 percent of the city’s entire population, according to Juico.
“Ang target po natin is 70 percent. Mga nasa milyon pa tayo bago ma-achieve ang herd community,” he said.
(Our target is 70 percent. We still need to inoculate millions before we can achieve the herd community.)
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