Metro Manila nears 40% of target for herd immunity — Duque

MANILA, Philippines — Metro Manila has reached close to 40 percent of its target for vaccinating 10 million adult Filipinos to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said Monday.

“NCR (National Capital Region) is almost doing 38 to about 40 percent completed jabs of the herd immunity target of about 10 million citizens of Metro Manila,” Duque told ABS-CBN News Channel.

Duque was discussing efforts of the government in fighting the more transmissible Delta variant when he mentioned the vaccination status in the capital region.

He said that at present, the Delta variant is the third most common variant of concern (VOCs) among all the samples sequenced by the Philippine Genome Center (PGC). The other VOCs are Alpha, Beta, and Gamma.

“Right now, it’s (Delta) number three. Our number one is still Beta, followed by Alpha at about 25 and 23 percent, respectively, while the Delta variant accounts for about 5 percent of the total specimens sequenced by the PGC,” he said.

“All these findings of the PGC are very important because they also guide us in terms of the intensification of our prevention, early detection, aggressive isolation, improved treatment, reintegration plus the vaccination,” Duque added.

On Sunday, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said that a little over 10 percent of the country’s population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. He said that over 24.1 million various doses have been administered nationwide. From this number, there are now 12.9 million partially vaccinated individuals and 11.2 million who are fully vaccinated.

The total number of people who are now fully vaccinated represents 15.88 percent of the targeted eligible population — that is, adults aged 18 and above — and also 10.13 percent of the country’s total population, according to Galvez.

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