MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has breached the 10-million mark for individuals already fully vaccinated against COVID-19, Malacañang announced Thursday.
“Today we breached a very important milestone in our national vaccination program. Dati rati po nagkukumahog kung saan kukuha ng bakuna. Ngayon po, meron nang 10 milyong Pilipino na meron nang full protection laban sa kalaban natin COVID-19,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said in an event in Mandaluyong City.
(Today we breached a very important milestone in our national vaccination program. We used to have a hard time securing vaccines. Now, there are already 10 million Filipinos who have full protection against our enemy COVID-19.)
Figures presented during Roque’s regular press briefing showed that 10,282,152 people were fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of August 4.
Meanwhile, a total of 22.4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have so far been administered, 12.2 million of which were given as the first dose.
The country reached the 10-million mark before Metro Manila reverted to the restrictive enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) starting Friday, August 6 to 20, 2021.
Despite stricter measures, the government said that vaccinations will proceed in the region.
“Binigyan po ng national government ang Metro Manila ng four million additional jabs para po gamitin during ECQ,” Roque said.
(The national government gave Metro Manila four million additional jabs to use during the ECQ.)
To complement the stricter quarantine measures to curb the COVID-19 Delta variant, Metro Manila mayors are eyeing to administer as much as 250,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses daily during the two-week ECQ.