MANILA—More Filipinos are now willing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, showing less hesitation to be immunized, vaccine czar Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr. said on Monday.

Galvez said the percentage of Filipinos inclined to take COVID-19 shots more than doubled after studies by partner agencies revealed 87 percent of surveyed individuals were willing to take the vaccine in December 2021, an increase from 32 percent in May 2021.

"Vaccine hesitancy also went down from as high as 30 percent last May, to only 8 percent. This is due to our various strategies to persuasion . . . giving incentives to vaccinated people, itong ginagawa po natin ngayon 'yung restrictions to unvaccinated individuals . . . atsaka 'yung prevention po ng misinformation," he said during a public briefing led by President Rodrigo Duterte.

According to Galvez, more than 57.2 million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, including 8.7 million children aged 12 to 17.

Nearly 60 million individuals in the country have received at least 1 dose of their COVID-19 shots, while 6.2 million have taken their booster shots.

Authorities are continuing efforts to make the immunization of children ages 5 to 11 happen, Galvez said, noting millions of COVID-19 vaccines formulated for the age bracket are set to arrive in the coming months.

The Philippines has so far tallied 3,442,056 COVID-19 cases, of which 262,997 or 7.6 percent remain active. It has registered 53,519 fatalities and 3,125,540 recoveries from the respiratory disease.

• Philippines logs 24,938 new COVID-19 cases

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