CEBU CITY, Philippines — The lack of internet connection has been challenging for the Cebu City Health Department (CHD) in the continuous vaccination program in at least 18 sites.
Doctor Jeffrey Ibones, head of the CHD, said that because there had been a lack of stable internet connection in many of the vaccination sites, it had become a struggle to transmit the data to the database at the City Hall.
This has caused a backlog of at least 100,000 data from first and second-dose vaccinees in over 18 vaccine sites in the first 11 days of the year.
“Ang among lista, aduna na tay 510,000 ka buok nga nabakunahan, sa second dose na. Pero naa tay backlog nga mga 100,000 nga need pa i-encode kay grabe gyod kalisod ang internet,” said Ibones.
(We have 510,000 whom we have already vaccinated for second dose. But we have a backlog of 100,000
The sites have been manually sending in data to the City Hall for encoding, which is why the CHD still cannot give exact figures to the vaccination program since Typhoon Odette.
However, based on the crowd turning up in the vaccination sites, the vaccination has been gaining ground due to the vaccines becoming a requirement of people at work and due to the threat of the Omicron variant as well.
On Wednesday, January 12, 2022, these sites will be open for vaccination:
Some sites have been reported a thousand individuals in one day. In fact, Ibones notes that some sites see lines of people as early as dawn.
“Naa tay nadunggan nga ala una sa kaadlawon naglinya na. Dili na pud na maayo kay ilang health ang ma at stake ana. Kaya ra man nato ihandle ang kadaghan. Kanang 1,000 individuals mahuman na nato og hapon,” said Ibones.
(We have heard that there was a queue at 1 a.m. It is not good because health is the one at stake. We can handle the number of people. We can accommodate 1,000 individuals in one afternoon.)
Ibones also assured the public that there were enough vaccines for them, but the city was only allowing its own residents to be vaccinated because of the lack of internet connection would make it difficult to cater to residents from other local government units (LGUs).
“Challenge sad gyod ang pagdagsa sa mga pagbakuna, ilang social distancing ug uban pa. Una sa tanan, daghan tag bakuna pero unahon lang gyod nato ang Cebu City residents kay basin moanhi na pud tanan, maglisod pud ta. Di pud nato kaya tanan,” the doctor said.
(It is a challenge because of the many vaccinees, and implementing social distancing and others. First of all, we have enough vaccines, but we have to serve first Cebu City residents, just in case they [residents of other LGUs] would come to the vaccination site, and we will find it difficult and we cannot serve them all.)
SM Seaside, SM City Cebu, Ayala Center Cebu, Robinson Galleria, UC Banilad, and the NOAH Complex at the SRP are the fixed sites already open in the city.
The Cebu City Sports Complex, Robinsons Cybergate and SM Seaside are open for minors second dose inoculations while barangay gyms are open by schedule for the second dose as well.
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/dbs