By NG Seruela
National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19 Chief Implementer and vaccine czar Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr. reported on Monday (Aug. 30) that a total of 48 million COVID-19 vaccine doses arrived in the Philippines.
In President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s Talk to the People, Galvez said the Philippines received a total of 48,885,590 COVID-19 vaccine doses as of Aug. 30 where 28,332,230 were procured by the national government, 3,617,100 procured by the private sector and various local government units (LGUs), 13,297,120 were donated by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVAX Facility, and 3,639,140 were donated by other countries.
He bared that a total of 44,150,080 vaccine doses were deployed and 15,786,198 vaccines are yet to be administered.
As of yesterday, the Philippines administered a total of 33,099,392 vaccines with 19,314,711 as the first dose and 13,784,681 as the second dose. The daily average of COVID-19 jabs from Aug. 1 is 435,150.
The vaccine czar said a total of 25 million vaccine doses is expected to arrive in September while 29.5 million doses are expected to be delivered in October.
“So sa ngayon po, ang atin pong nakuha po is 48.8 million. Ang atin pong total vaccine na nasecure po is 187 [million]. So mayroon pa po tayong inaasahan na mga more or less 137 million at ‘yun po ay dadating sa this coming September, October, November, December,” he added.
In relation to this, Galvez shared that based on the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital’s (UP-PGH) report, there are no fully vaccinated COVID-19 patients who are critically intubated due to the disease.
“Ang magandang report ng UP-PGH na sa lahat ng [patients] with complete vaccination, wala pong critically intubated.”
Experts continue to urge the public to get COVID-19 vaccinated to be protected from severe hospitalization and death.
“All vaccines work against severe cases and hospitalization,” Galvez asserted. -rir
