Malacanang announced Tuesday that over 63 million Filipinos had been vaccinated against COVID-19, one year after the Philippine government began its vaccine deployment.
As of Monday, February 28, acting presidential spokesperson Karlo Nograles said that a total of 63,219,221 people had completed their primary vaccine series.
68,808,944 people have received their first vaccine dose, and 10,214,164 people have received their booster shots after reaching the three to six-month requirement, out of a total of 135,747,294 vaccine doses administered nationwide.
“With more than 80% of our country’s target population now fully vaccinated, we are confident that we can achieve our goal of vaccinating 90 million Filipinos by the end of the second quarter, and administer at least 72.16 million booster shots by the end of the year,” National Task Force (NTF) chief implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said.
By the end of March, the government hopes to have fully vaccinated 77 million Filipinos against COVID-19 and 90 million by the time President Rodrigo Duterte leaves office on June 30.
From March 1 to March 15, the National Capital Region and 38 other locations across the country were placed on Alert Level 1, the lowest under the new alert system.
63 million Pinoys fully vaccinated vs. COVID-19
Intrazonal and interzonal travel are permitted under Alert Level 1 regardless of age or comorbidities. All facilities, people, or activities are allowed to operate, work, or engage in activities at full on-site or venue/seating capacity as long as they meet minimal public health standards.
Galvez applauded the LGUs for “successfully” implementing their Prevention, Detection, Isolation, Treatment, Reintegration, and Vaccination (PDITRV) plan.
“We should continue to build the wall of protection. We are calling our LGUs to ramp up our booster shots to sustain our protection against COVID-19,” he said.
Galvez stated that the country had received around 225 million vaccine shots since February of last year.
“The key was to work closely with the medical experts, local government units, diplomatic corps, WHO (World Health Organization), and the private sector to maximize our limited inventory of vaccines. We ensured those in the medical field and the vulnerable sectors of society were given primary protection first,” he said.
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