ABOUT 5.628 million senior citizens in the country are now fully vaccinated against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), data from the National Vaccine Operations Center (NVOC) as of January 1 showed.
The NVOC said some 4.92 million senior citizens have received their first dose, 5.628 million are fully vaccinated, and 492,241 received their booster shots.
Nationwide, the government has administered some 108.757 million doses of vaccines nationwide — 57.1 million as first dose, 49.797 million as second dose, and 1.81 million received as booster shots.
Franklin Quijano, chairman of the National Commission of Senior Citizens, said at least 1.5 million senior citizens nationwide have yet to be vaccinated and called on local government units, organizations of senior citizens, and health officials to double their efforts to convince the unvaccinated elders to get the shots.
He said many of the unvaccinated senior citizens come from the hinterlands and areas with low cases of COVID-19.
He said conspiracy theories such as becoming a zombie, and difficulty for some senior citizens to register and go to the vaccine centers are discouraging some of the elders from being inoculated.
Quijano said the increasing cases of COVID-19 and the presence of the Omicron variant make vaccination more urgent.
He said while a surge in COVID cases appears to be in Metro Manila only, the movement of people makes it possible for COVID-19 especially the Omicron to spread and reach even the senior citizens who are just staying home.
He said there is also a need for a continued, stronger and more accurate information dissemination to fully convince the elders to be vaccinated.
The Interagency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) raised the alert level in Metro Manila to Alert level 3, effective January 3 to 15, due to the increasing cases of COVID-19.
Malacañang expects cases to further go up due to suspicions of local transmission of the Omicron variant.
More than 110 million doses of vaccines against COVID-19 have been delivered to the country as of end of 2021.
