Health workers vaccinated in Cebu City in good condition

An empty vial of CoronaVac, the COVID-19 vaccine brand of Sinovac, sitting on top of a table used in a vaccination site. Central Visayas has already rolled out COVID-19 vaccines for its healthcare workers. CDN Digital Photo|  Morexette Marie B. Erram

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Health Department (CHD) reported that of all the 10,964 health workers who were vaccinated have been in good condition so far.

Health workers here have been inoculated with the first doses of Sinovac or AstraZeneca vaccines in the past two weeks.

City Health officer-in-charge, Doctor Jeffrey Ibones, said that the health workers from public and private hospitals, city-run medical facilities, and the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) submitted themselves for the vaccination.

At least 49 health workers refused to be vaccinated while 166 were rescheduled due to preexisting conditions.

So far, the health workers who were vaccinated have not reported any adverse effects to any of the vaccines.

This monitoring is important as this will serve as the city’s guide for the upcoming mass vaccination in the next months when the vaccines are already allowed to be released to the public.

The vaccination of the health workers is also the determinant on how the city government can conduct a vaccine roll-out better.

“Naa gyoy uban nga dili magpavaccine tungod sa ilang mabasa sa social media, makita sa balita. Pero katong nagpavaccine nami, silang Councilor Joel Garganera, nakita na nila nga ‘ay okay ra man diay ang vaccine,’ nagpa vaccine pud sila,” said Ibones.

(There are really some who refuse to be vaccinated because of what they read on social media and the news. But when we conducted the vaccination, they saw that it was okay, so they had themselves vaccinated.)

Ibones said that ahead of the arrival of the vaccines, there must be effective public information dessimination to encourage the people to be immunized.

Vice Mayor Michael Rama said this is where the information dessimination comes from because if the people are not informed that there will be a vaccination roll-out, they will be hesitatant to undergo the procedure.

Next week, more health workers in the city will be vaccinated. There are around 6,000 more health workers that have yet to be vaccinated.

Ibones now hopes for a higher turn-out or at least all doses provided to the city should be used. The second batch of vaccination will include the 1,000 barangay health workers in the city.

He added that the monitoring of the health workers previously vaccinated for the first dose will play a crucial role in forming the opinion of the second batch on getting vaccinated.

The doctor admitted there will be certain effects of the vaccine including muscle soreness of the area injected, some reports of headache, while others report passing maladies that should go away a few hours or days after the vaccination.

The public should not worry, however, as these are not “adverse effects” and may differ among each individual.

Rama said that the goal of the city is to prepare the residents for the mass roll-out that when the vaccination sites will open, the residents will immediately go there without much needed convincing.

This will be done through mass media and barangay based information drives to encourage the public, answer their concerns, and convince them of the necessity of the vaccination.

Councilor David Tumulak also said that the vaccination sites are being prepared. The flow has already been established from arrival to health assessment to counselling, up to the monitoring.

This system will undergo a dry run by health workers next week in two of the actual vaccination sites in the city including Robinsons Galleria Cebu in Barangay Tejero and Lourdes Parish Don Bosco Youth Center in Barangay Punta.

Tumulak said the system will be adjusted for the actual mass vaccination soon.

Read: Region 7 has enough COVID-19 vaccines for all hospital workers – DOH-7

/bmjo