A minor is vaccinated in a vaccination site in Cebu City.| CDND photo / Morexette Marie Erram (file photo)
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City already vaccinated over 3,000 minors on the first week of inoculation of minors aged 12 to 17 years old from November 8 to 12, 2021.
Doctor Jeffrey Ibones, head of the City Health Department (CHD), said that a total of 3,255 minors had been jabbed at the Southwestern University PHINMA building.
The city noted a gradual increase in the number of minors appearing at the site per day as it started with only 450 minors on the first day and on the last day, near 1,000 minors got vaccinated.
Ibones attributed the good response of the parents to get their children vaccinated to the growing appeal for the return of the face-to-face classes.
In previous interviews with CDN Digital, many of the minors had expressed their desire to already go back to their classrooms as online classes had been tedious and tiring.
The CHD believes this has been the driving force behind the rise of minors getting vaccinated in the past week.
“Nakita gyod nato nga nagkataas ang mga minors nga atong gibakunahan. Maybe because nahuman na sad ang ilang mga exams, naa na silay oras,” said Ibones.
(We saw the increase of the minors that we had vaccinated. Maybe, because their exams were already over and they now have time for this.)
Because of the increasing number of minors appearing in the vaccine sites, the city government will open another vaccination site for minors at the Robinsons Cybergate.
The Robinsons Cybergate is close to the Chong Hua Hospital in case of emergencies, which is why it will also be the most likely site for minors with co-morbidities.
Once the second site opens, Ibones said there would be a chance that they would allow walk-ins already because of the bigger space.
As of now, the sole site in SWU PHINMA could not handle walk-ins simply because there was not enough space. Ibones noted that an individual minor would take at least one to two guardians.
Once the new sites will open, there will be a possibility that walk-ins will already be allowed.
As of now, only 19,180 minors have been registered by their parents to the vaccination program. This is still far to the approximate 130,000 target number of minors aged 12 to 17 years old that the CHD wants to be vaccinated.
With this, the city is urging parents to get their minors registered to the vaccination program.
As of now, the total first dose inoculated by Cebu City is 446,731 while the second dose is at 376,494.
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