More than 1.8 million fully vaccinated in PH, reports Roque

More than 1.8 million people have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus in the country since the government’s free inoculation drive started last March.

Workers belonging to the A4 priority group are inoculated with Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccines inside a cinema-turned vaccination hub in a mall on Tuesday, June 8, 2021 (ALI VICOY/MANILA BULLETIN)

According to Presidential spokesman Harry Roque, 1,855,472 people got their second doses of the coronavirus shots after the government administered 6.8 million jabs as of June 13.

The list of people with complete vaccination included 964,781 frontline health workers, 471,425 senior citizens, 412,246 persons with comorbidity, and 7,020 essential workers.

The country has so far received over 12.7 million coronavirus vaccines, including the most recent 100,000 Sputnik V doses from Russia and 2.2 million Pfizer jabs under the World Health Organization-led COVAX facility. The government’s vaccination drive has been expanded to cover essential workers this month in a bid to curb the virus spread, that has so far infected over a million people in the country.

The government originally aimed to inoculate 70 million Filipinos to attain herd immunity before the end of the year. But considering the world’s tight vaccine supply, the government revised its target to attain population protection instead, targeting to inoculate over 9 million people in National Capital Region by late November.

The government, meantime, rejected criticisms that it has been issuing misleading information about the country’s vaccination efforts.

Roque insisted that there was “no deception” in the vaccination update, saying it was just a manner of viewing the data.

The government often takes pride the country ranks high in the number of vaccines administered among the 10 Southeast Asian nations. But when compared the number of vaccinated persons to the population target, the country ranks lower among its neighbors.

“Certainly not because the same database also includes the number of doses actually given so wala pong pagkakamali doon (there is no mistake). It’s just two ways of looking at the numbers,” Roque said when asked about the alleged misleading information on the country’s vaccination drive disseminated by the government.

“One is absolute numbers and we remain second, there is no deception. And another is a percentage number which depends on your population,” he added.

Roque argued that the Philippines would rank lower than Singapore, since the neighbor has a smaller population compared to the country’s size. “There’s absolutely no deception when you use absolute numbers. Katotohanan lang po (It’s just the truth),” he said.