Over 646,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered in QC

Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte gets her first dose of Sinovac vaccine on May 24, 2021. Photo from QC (FILE)

MANILA, Philippines — Some 646,043 doses of various COVID-19 vaccines have been administered so far in Quezon City, Mayor Joy Belmonte disclosed Tuesday.

Belmonte said that of the current total, 495,490 are first doses while 150,553 are second doses – which also means that 150, 553 individuals are already fully vaccinated in Quezon City.

The local chief executive also said the city has hit a new record of vaccinating 37,000 individuals in a single day on Monday, June 21.

“Kung bigyan pa tayo sa lungsod ng sapat na bakuna, we can do that much every day,” Belmonte said in an interview with INQside Look.

According to Belmonte, Quezon City needs to inoculate 2.2 million people – including minors – to be able to achieve her immunity, which entails full vaccination of 70 percent of its total population.

“They said na kailangan talaga 70 percent of the total population and that would bring up our target to 2.2 million. But having said that, there’s also the challenge of if you make it 70 percent of the total population, that would require us to also inoculate minors kasi dito sa ating lungsod, more than a million are minors,” Belmonte explained.

“Yesterday, I had a conversation with Secretary [Carlito] Galvez and he did tell me that the Pfizer vaccines he ordered would be sufficient for the vaccination of minors as well,” she added. Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. is the country’s vaccine czar.

As of June 21, data from the Department of Health show that 8.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have already been administered in the country. Of this number, over 6.2 million are first doses while more than 2.1 million are second doses or fully vaccinated Filipinos.