The vaccine rollout in densely populated Metro Manila has accelerated The Nayon Pilipino “mega vaccination hub” is capable of inoculating 15,000 people a day MANILA: In an effort to contain a surge in COVID-19 infections linked to the spread of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus, authorities in the National Capital Region of the Philippines are setting up drive-thru and 24/7 vaccination centers to speed up inoculation rates. So far in a country with a population of 110 million, a little more than 12 million people have been fully immunized. The government aims to have more than half of the population fully vaccinated by the end of the year. The vaccine rollout in densely populated Metro Manila has accelerated, as the area remains under lockdown until Aug. 20 to slow the spread of the virus. “We are trying to hasten the inoculation for the 14 million Metro Manila residents,” Resty Padilla, spokesman for the National Task Force Against COVID-19, said on Thursday. “Today, the Nayon Pilipino drive-thru vaccination site in Paranaque just opened,” he added, referring to a “mega vaccination hub” for the Capital Region and nearby provinces. It includes eight vaccination centers and 30 drive-thru booths, and is capable of inoculating at least 15,000 people a day. Padilla said that with a target of delivering 250,000 jabs a day, its is hoped that most of the Capital Region’s population will be inoculated by the end of September or early October. Authorities in cities across the region are working hard to meet this target, with Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte reporting on Thursday that more than 70 percent of the city’s population has received at least one vaccine dose and more than 40 percent is fully vaccinated. He added that authorities expect all residents will have received the first vaccine dose by the end of August, and be completely vaccinated by October. In Caloocan City, nearly 600,000 out of a population of 1.5 million have received the first dose of a vaccine, Mayor Oscar Malapitan said, and more than 341,800 are fully vaccinated. Despite the ramped-up vaccination drive and the lockdown of Metro Manila and four neighboring provinces, the rise in infections has yet to abate and continues to drive a surge in hospitalizations. On Wednesday the government opened a 108-bed COVID-19 modular hospital at the Lung Center of the Philippines in Quezon City, to expand the capacity of the health care system to cope with the spread of infections. The Philippines has reported more than 1.7 million infections and 29,500 deaths since the start of the pandemic.