DAVAO CITY—This city is more than half the way to the target of achieving herd immunity, and hoped that vaccine delivery would remain consistent to allow greater economic activities for its residents of 1.8 million.
Combined together of those who got their first dose injections and those who have been fully vaccinated, their numbers have reached 691,214, half of the 1.2 million target who must get the inoculations for a blanket protection against the Covid-19 virus.
Dr. Michelle Schlosser, spokesman of the city’s Covid-19 Task Force, said 24,900 doses of Moderna vaccine allocated for the city arrived last week.
She said a shipment of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have also arrived, even the city was waiting for its share of more allocation. The city was expecting a share of the Sinovac vaccines that recently arrived in the country.
“If there are more vaccines allocated for the city, we will achieve our target timeline faster. Again, we are dependent on the national government’s procurement and vaccine allocation for the city,” Schlosser said.
The Davao City Covid-19 Task Force adheres to the target inoculation of 70 percent of the city’s 1.8 million population, equivalent to 1.2 million Dabawenyos.
As of August 10, the city has already administered vaccines to a total of 411,470 for the first dose while 279,744 for the second dose. She said that the second dose rollout was still ongoing.
“We almost achieved half a million vaccinated individuals for our first dose. Congratulations to our vaccination team and the Dabawenyos. Even if we have limited vaccine allocation, we see the willingness of the public to get the vaccine. We hope that their eagerness will continue,” Schlosser said.
The city has averaging 10,000 vaccinations a day and still increasing as the city puts up additional sites, this time to discourage walk-ins and accommodate those who have registered through their Davao Safe QR Code system, and a special lane for overseas Filipino workers, who must take the accepted vaccines abroad. There are 56 sites now, and the target was to reach 15,000 daily vaccinations.