Philippines looking to give boosters vs. COVID-19 to 23 million

The administration is looking to give booster shots to 23.8 million persons to achieve 50% booster coverage in the first 100 days of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in Malacanang.

“In order to achieve 50% booster coverage as part of the First 100 Days, we need to vaccinate 23,840,032 individuals," the Department of Health said in a briefer.

“This number is half of the 78,100,578 target population, less 15,210,257 who have already been given their first booster or third dose,” it added.

The health department said this would strengthen the population’s wall of immunity to prevent severe and critical COVID-19 cases.

“In order to achieve this, we have to vaccinate 397,334 individuals per day for 60 days,” the DOH said.

Marcos earlier urged Filipinos to get vaccinated and avail of booster shots to protect themselves from severe illness due to COVID-19.

He also directed the DOH to vaccinate 90% of the country’s senior citizens within his first 100 days in office.

Marcos said there was no need to pass a law on mandatory vaccination.

He said a massive campaign would be launched for booster shots and vaccinations with the help of the DOH, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), and Department of Education (DepEd).

Based on the DOH’s National COVID-19 Vaccination Dashboard, a total of 154,129,333 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered, with 68,335,536 individuals receiving at least one dose as of July 2.

It added that at least 15,098,295 individuals have been given their first booster shots. -NB, GMA News