Mayor Isko Moreno with Vice Mayor Honey Lacuna and Manila Health Department chief Dr. Arnold Pangan (middle) after a meeting regarding the ongoing vaccination program in the city of Manila. Photo by JERRY S. TAN
Manila tops vax deployment in NCR
MANILA once again lived up to its tag as the country’s capital city, as it bested all other cities in the National Capital Region (NCR) when it comes to the speedy deployment of vaccines.
This can be gleaned from the NCR Overall Summary report of the Regional Vaccination Operations Center which showed that the city of Manila had already inoculated a total of 188,146 persons with their first dose of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine.
The bulk is comprised of those falling under the A3 category, or persons aged 18 to 59 with comorbidities, followed by senior citizens and then medical and health frontliners.
In this light, Manila accounts for nearly 20 percent of the total number of individuals vaccinated in the entire country, which is 979,136 in all or about 7.28 percent of the country’s total population.
Following closely is Quezon City with 176,794 while the rest registered five-digit administered doses.
Mayor Isko Moreno welcomed the development and credited all City Hall personnel who willingly work over and beyond their call of duty just to jab as many as possible.
Moreno particularly thanked and commended Vice Mayor Honey Lacuna, the Manila Health Department headed by Dr. Arnold ‘Poks’ Pangan and all the teams behind the mass inoculation program comprised of vaccinators, encoders and all other related personnel, for all their sacrifices and dedication to duty.
The mayor cited them for acceding to his request for them to work for as long as 14 hours during vaccination days and even during weekends and holidays.
If enough number of vaccines land in the city from the national government, Moreno makes sure to simultaneously open, at the very least, 18 vaccination sites from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. The most number of vaccines deployed in a day in the city of Manila has reached more than 16,261.
Way before the vaccines arrived in the country, Moreno and Lacuna have been convincing Manilans to get jabbed for their own protection against turning severe or critical in case they get the infection.
They also conducted a series of simulation exercises of the city’s vaccination program to bar any possible hitches, thus ensuring the success of the said program.
On New Year’s Eve, Moreno also launched the city’s online pre-registration program for those interested to avail of the free jab against COVID-19.
