PH breaches 100M in administered COVID-19 doses; 1M Filipinos already got boosters
CNN Philippines – The government has already administered more than 100 million coronavirus shots, a million of which were boosters given to Filipinos for additional protection against the COVID-19.
Data from the National COVID-19 Vaccination Dashboard on Saturday showed that 100,600,809 doses were administered as of December 17.
Of this number, 56,167,765 were administered as first doses. Meanwhile, 43,351,844 were already fully vaccinated.
A total of 1,081,200 received their boosters.
“This gargantuan milestone is a huge turnaround from the scarcity of vaccine supplies we have once faced at the beginning of our vaccination program,” Health Sec. Francisco Duque said in a statement on Friday.
“This sparks hope that we can continue to march forward in this pandemic,” he added.
Over the past week, around 658,687 average daily doses have been administered.
More than 2 million doses were administered in the second round of the nationwide immunization drive, a bit far from the government’s target of inoculating seven million Filipinos from December 15 to 17 alone.
The government is also considering shortening the period of booster shots to three months after the second dose due to the threat of the Omicron variant.
However, there are no talks yet about the possibility of allowing a fourth shot in the country.
“Wala pa tayong nasa horizon na fourth shot pero hindi malayo ‘yan kasi alam naman natin na maraming pag-aaral. Titingnan natin sa ibang bansa kung anong nangyayari,” Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said in a government briefing.
“As of now, booster pa lang. It’s a third dose and additional dose to two-dose series,” she added.
