MANILA — Some 14.1 million children and adolescents have so far been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 ahead of the school opening this month, the Department of Health said Friday, 

Of the figure, some 9.8 million are adolescents ages 12 to 17, while around 4.3 million are children ages 5 to 11, according to DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire.

"Magandang balita rin [ito] bilang nalalapit na ang pasukan," she said in a press briefing.

(This is good news ahead of the start of classes.)

The Department of Education has set the opening of School Year 2022 to 2023 on Aug. 22.

According to a DepEd order, public and private schools in basic education can implement distance and blended learning only until Oct. 31, 2022. Starting Nov. 2, schools must shift to 5 days of in-person classes per week, regardless of the alert level status in their area.

Latest DepEd data showed at least 18.6 million students in basic education have registered for the coming school year as of Wednesday. The figure is more than half of the agency's target of 28.6 million learners.

To date, over 72 million Filipinos are fully vaccinated against the disease. This includes 6.8 million senior citizens who have received the jab, the DOH said.In its effort to increase the "wall of immunity," the country has boosted about 16.8 million Filipinos.

"Kaya naman makiisa tayo sa ating boosted Pilipinas, PinasLakas and get the jabs done, lalong-lalo na po sa madaling panahon para maipataas po natin muli ang wall of immunity dito sa ating bansa," Vergeire said.

(Let us join PinasLakas and get the jabs done immediately so we can strengthen our wall of immunity.) 

The PinasLakas program aims to administer 23 million booster jabs within the first 100 days in office of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

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