Vaccinators from VSMMC during the first day of Cebu’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout on March 4, 2021. | CDN Digital Photo / Morexette Marie Erram
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Approximately five months since the rollout began in Central Visayas, almost all medical workers here are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Data from the Visayas Vaccination Operations Center (VVOC) revealed that as of August 22, 96.2 percent of the region’s healthcare workers have completed their inoculation schedule.
This meant that out of the 131, 989 qualified to receive free COVID vaccines from the national government, 126, 928 already received their second dose.
In addition, only 4,520 healthcare workers in the region are still yet to receive their first dose.
“This is a really good number and we would like to congratulate all our healthcare frontliners in achieving this,” said Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, VVOC spokesperson, in a virtual briefer on Monday, August 23.
The vaccination rollout in Central Visayas began last March with healthcare workers assigned in Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) which is the region’s largest COVID-referral hospital.
Since then, a total of 2,741, 790 doses of the vaccines from at least six brands were delivered here. Of this number, 1,711,339 have already been administered.
Central Visayas, according to the 2020 census, has a population of over 8 million.
On the other hand, turnout remained low for individuals classified under A2 and A4 sub-priority groups of the Philippine National Deployment Plan for COVID-19 vaccines which refer to senior citizens and non-medical frontliners, respectively.
The same report from VVOC showed that only 187,244 out of the 567,177 elderlies eligible to get the vaccines were fully vaccinated, or translating to a success rate of 33 percent.
For the sub-priority group A4, which has the largest population at 896,988, only 6.6 percent or 58,814 got their second dose.
“We’re calling, once again, to the public to get themselves vaccinated as soon as possible, and while there is still enough supply,” added Loreche.
/rcg
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