Subangdako Barangay Captain Ernie Manatad
MANDAUE CITY, Philippines – About 60 to 70 percent or 14 to 15,000 of the city’s 24,122 validated registered senior citizens have already registered to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Subangdaku Barangay Captain Ernie Manatad, chairman of the city’s COVID-19 vaccine board, said they are expecting it to increase because while the city distributes the financial assistance to the senior citizens, the personnel have distributed registration forms to them.
The house-to-house distribution of the seniors’ financial assistance started last Monday, April 12, 2021, until April 23.
Manatad said after the vaccination of the medical frontliners, they will proceed to the senior citizens.
He added it would not necessarily mean that all medical frontliners should be vaccinated but only those who are willing.
Manatad said when there would be only a few medical frontliners who would show up during their vaccination that’s the time they will proceed to the seniors with the Department of Health’s (DOH) approval.
As of today, about 1,450 medical frontliners in the city have already been vaccinated.
The city, aside from the medical workers in private hospitals has more than 2,000 frontliners.
Meanwhile, Manatad said they also have already initially identified the barangay gymnasiums that will replace the identified public schools as vaccination sites for the upcoming mass vaccination.
These are the gymnasiums in barangays Looc, Subangdaku, Banilad, Maguikay, Paknaan, among others.
Manatad said the board has yet to approve these sites.
He added they would still discuss the matter and check the sites’ accessibility.
The identified 10 vaccination sites before were the Mandaue City Cultural and Sports Complex, UCLM’s new building, Mandaue City Hospital, Gullas Hospital, lower ground parking areas of Chong Hua Hospital Mandaue branch and Maayo Wellness Hospital, Basak Elementary School, Cabancalan Elementary School, Leonard Woods Jagobiao Elementary School, and Canduman Elementary School.
Manatad said the private hospitals have already agreed to use their area for some time.
He added they will not be using the public schools as vaccination sites anymore as the inoculation program may take years and face-to-face classes for public schools may resume. /rcg