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CEBU CITY, Philippines — The vaccination for senior citizens in Cebu City will start on Monday, April 19, 2021. This developed after the Vaccine Advisory Board (VAB) agreed on the procedure for conducting the vaccination.
Vice Mayor Michael Rama, lead convenor of the city’ vaccination program, who confirmed this on Friday, April 16, 2021, said that the plans were being polished especially for the schedule.
“We do not want nga open to all. Dapat naay specific nga schedule. I would want nga ipaklaro gyod nga naay identified barangays,” said Rama in a phone interview with CDN Digital.
(We do not this to be open to all. There should be a specific schedule. I would want it that there should be clear identified barangays.)
He said that the beneficiaries of the free vaccines would be informed of their schedule as not all barangays could be catered in a day.
The vaccination will be conducted in the vaccination sites, contrary to the original plan of conducting these at the hospitals. However, the hospitals have committed to help provide manpower to the vaccination program.
The schedule for the vaccination will be released in the coming days and Rama urges the senior citizens to wait patiently for their turn as vaccines are limited.
READ: VOC recommends start of roll-out for senior citizens by Monday
Mayor Edgardo Labella said that the city government was assured of additional vaccines by Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr., the vaccine czar.
Additional 500,000 vaccines arrived and the country and Galvez promised that Cebu City would get a portion despite the limited vaccines.
Labella said there were 600 vials left of the Sinovac vaccine and these would be allocated to the remaining unvaccinated health care workers who would be willing to get the shot and to the senior citizens.
The mayor has given his go-signal for the start of the roll-out of the vaccines to the senior citizens this Monday as he said all vaccines must be utilized.
The Vaccines Operations Center (VOC) reported 400 excess doses on Thursday, April 15, 2021, when only a few health workers turned out to get inoculated at Robinson Galeria.
The city government has yet to identify the vaccination site for the senior citizens, but it will announce further details in the coming days.
There are now 27,000 registered senior citizen for the city’s vaccination program, and the mayor hopes they will all be vaccinated in the coming weeks or months.
The city continues to rely on the national allotment of the vaccines despite having allotted a budget for its own procurement.
Labella said that to save city funds, they would wait for the national allotment to run out before procuring more vaccines.
He said in this way the money would only be spent when absolutely needed.
“If it will not be enough to cover the 70 percent of the population of the city, then we will have to supply the rest,” said Labella.
/dbs
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