12-K seniors’ vaccination

By Liza Agoot 

BAGUIO CITY – The city government here targets to vaccinate over 12,000 more senior citizens who are yet to receive a Covid-19 vaccine.
    "With the mobile vaccination teams to be deployed to the different barangays, the city government hopes to expedite the inoculation of the most vulnerable sector,” Mayor Benjamin Magalong said in an interview.
    He said many senior citizens refuse to queue in vaccination sites for fear of exposure to the virus.
    Magalong said barangay officials should coordinate with the district coordinator and register the elderlies as well as persons with disabilities (PWDs) for the dispatch of a mobile vaccination team.
    He said the team “can jump off in just an hour's notice. For the first dose, we can vaccinate around 50 people in one to one and a half hours, we have already tested this.”
    The City Health Services Office rolled out the mobile vaccination last May, initially to vaccinate the bedridden and non-ambulatory residents in the city but its service was expanded to serve the elderly and the PWDs.
    The city government continues to boost its vaccination capacity with the opening of more vaccination sites and operating them seven days a week, with extended hours.
    “The SM vaccination site has two shifts, from 5 to 11 a.m. and 11 to 5 p.m. There are two shifts there so that the vaccination will start early,” Magalong said.
    The site can accommodate 2,500 vaccinees per day.
    The mayor said they want to avoid people queueing from midnight just to be accommodated for vaccination on the same day.
    He reminded his constituents that the city still implements the curfew hours from midnight to 4 a.m.
    As of July 27, a total of 21,249 senior citizens have received their first dose of the vaccine while 18,218 have also received the second dose.
    Some 157,435 residents belonging to the A1 to A5 categories have been vaccinated, out of whom 59,843 have received two doses.
    There were 3,698 who received the single-dose Johnson&Johnson vaccine. -- PNA