The city of Bacolod has started vaccinating senior citizens against COVID-19 today, April 23.
In a taped message, Mayor Evelio Leonardia said that about 350 senior citizens were expected to avail of the Sinovac vaccines, bu the actual count from City Health showed that they exceeded the target with 408 seniors able to receive their first jab.
At least 190 seniors were vaccinated at the lobby of the Government Center that started at 9:00 a.m. today. The rest got their first jab at four barangay vaccination centers in Villamonte, Mandalagan, Vista Alegre, and Singcang-Airport.
The first batch of seniors were texted about their schedule based on a first-come first-served sequence in the order that their registration came into the City’s database.
Meanwhile, another 1,050 doses shall be released to various hospitals in Bacolod intended for the remaining health care workers at these facilities and for the senior citizen relatives of these hospital health care workers living with them in the same household.
Vaccines will be administered by the hospitals concerned.
Leonardia, who chairs the COVID-19 Vaccination Council (CoVaC), said, “It is the highest priority of the city government to ensure that the lives of Bacolodnons, especially the underprivileged, poor and marginalized, frontline workers, health professionals, healthcare providers, police officers and soldiers, and those in the essential services, especially women who represent the majority of the health workforce, as well as senior citizens, persons with disabilities, and people in vulnerable situations, shall be protected from Covid-19 by ensuring accessibility and adequacy of supply of related drugs and vaccines.”
“This vaccination is our only way out of this pandemic and the means to restart our economic recovery,” the mayor added.
Meanwhile, OIC-City Health Officer Dr. Edwin Miraflor, who helped design the city’s vaccination road map, and EOC deputy medical Dr. Chris Sorongon, are encouraging those who are vaccinable but have not registered yet for the vaccination, to register now so that when more vaccines will periodically arrive, they can be scheduled, too, according to their priority groupings.
“We have waited long enough to convince all HCWs (healthcare workers) to undergo vaccination. We will now proceed to the other priority groups while there are vaccine allocations arriving. Please continue to register through your respective barangays or on the city’s online portal registration,” Miraflor said.
Online registration can be done by registering at this link: tinyurl.com/bcdceironline.
Leonardia said that Bacolod has procured 650,000 doses of the AstraZeneca (AZ) vaccines using a portion of the P300-million local budget allotted for the vaccination program.
These AZ vaccines are expected to come in batches starting July this year.
The vaccines that will be used between now and July are those that are provided from time to time by the DOH.
