The Quezon City government has already administered over 1 million total vaccine doses since the start of its vaccination program in March.
Mayor Joy Belmonte credited the success of the city’s vaccination program to its fleet of health-care workers, volunteers and auxiliary personnel.
“From our police officers who ensure that the vaccine supply is secure from the warehouse to the sites, the doctors, nurses and other medical workers who screen patients and administer the vaccine doses, up to the volunteers who marshal our sites, distribute forms, and clean up after, and the encoders who record our patients’ data individually — the continuous success of our program is due to your unwavering efforts. We are truly grateful for your service to our QCitizens,” she said.
As of July 13, at least 1,013,988 jabs have been rolled out.
Of this number, 686,311 or 40.37 percent of the 1.7 million target population have received their first doses while 327,677 or 19.28 percent of the same target are fully protected after receiving their second doses.
The QCProtektodo Vaccination Program has been constantly improving with the help and support of many stakeholders, including malls, homeowners’ associations, religious groups, medical organizations, schools and universities, government agencies, private sector groups and business establishments.
Over the past weeks, the vaccination program has consistently reached record-high numbers, Belmonte said.
Last June 23, the city government posted a new record by administering over 45,000 vaccines in one day.
“The key has always been a whole of city approach where all stakeholders, public and private, join hands to collaborate on this program. Through this, we are confident we will reach our goal of population protection in the coming months for as long as soon as vaccine supply stabilizes,” she said.
Different vaccine brands, such as Sinovac, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Gamaleya and Moderna, have been administered to members of the A1-A5 priority groups.
Belmonte said whenever there is enough supply of vaccines, the city government could operate around 50 vaccination sites simultaneously.
Former councilor Joseph Juico, co-chairperson of the QC Task Force Vax to Normal, said the city government would continue to expand and improve its inoculation efforts.
“While this achievement is an important milestone for the program, we can only relax once we have inoculated the last QCitizen eligible for the vaccine,” he noted.
“We can no longer feel the vaccine hesitancy, instead what we have now is vaccine envy where people demand they get vaccinated. However, our problem continues to be the irregular supply of vaccines which we hope will be addressed as the procured and donated supplies arrive regularly into the country,” he added.
The city mayor called on the QCitizens to be patient as the local government awaits its vaccine allocations and to remain vigilant despite being vaccinated.