THE city of Manila continues inching its way to reaching its share of herd or population immunity, after records showed that the total number of individuals who have been vaccinated with first dose has already reached 811,998, as of 8 p.m. of July 26.

Mayor Isko Moreno, citing a report from Vice Mayor Honey Lacuna and Manila Health Department chief Dr. Poks Pangan who are on top of the city’s mass vaccination program, said that of the number, 464,903 have been fully-vaccinated while the total number of vaccines administered is now at 1,240,588. Manila has a population of about 1.8 million.

Lacuna said the city needs to fully vaccinate 70 percent of its population to achieve herd immunity.

According to Moreno, the Department of Health had told him that the city needs to fully vaccinate at least 800,000 individuals, in order to achieve its herd immunity, which is also known as population immunity.

As this developed, the University of Santo Tomas (UST) has become the latest addition to the ever-growing number of vaccination sites being utilized by the city of Manila.

Moreno and Lacuna personally visited the first day of vaccination at the UST practice gym on Monday, where they were met by Pangan, his assistant Dr. Ed Santos and UST officials headed by its Rector, Rev. Richard Ang.

The mayor and vice mayor profusely thanked the UST officials present and assured them that they will not regret having lent their place as this will go a long way in helping the city government vaccinators and the residents have a very comfortable, spacious and open-air safe area where the mass inoculation may be held.

The other designated venues for inoculation include 18 public schools spread all over the city’s six districts and four huge shopping malls, which operate for 14 hours, from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. rain or shine and even during holidays and weekends, when vaccine allotment from the national government is plentiful.

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Itchie G. Cabayan