With 15 days left before the opening of classes, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. urged local government units (LGU) to increase COVID-19 booster vaccination drive.

In a video message posted in his Facebook account Saturday, Marcos expressed concern over the still low number of fully vaccinated individuals, who have availed of their boosters.

"Currently, 15.9 million Filipinos have availed their first booster shot, while 1.2 million got their second booster shot," Marcos said.

"This is not a good number compared to our target of 100 percent. That is why we are appealing to our LGUs to become aggressive in their (vaccination drive) campaign," he added.

As of last Sunday, the Department of Health (DOH) showed the 71.52 million individuals completed their primary dose but only 23 percent or 16.59 million have availed of their booster shots.

The DOH said last Friday it will increase its daily vaccination rate to 440,000.

Marcos said increasing booster recipients, particularly among students, will minimize the risk posed by COVID-19 after the opening of the new school year on August 22.

The Department of Education (DepEd) earlier said it plans to resume face-to-face classes for 15.2 million enrollees in all its schools by November. DMS