Mayor Isko Moreno gets vaccinated by Vice Mayor Honey Lacuna at the Osmena High School in Tondo after the IATF allowed mayors to get vaccinated.
MAYOR Isko Moreno got his first COVID-19 jab yesterday, about a month after the city of Manila rolled out its vaccination program, besting all other cities and municipalities in the country in terms of coverage and number of individuals inoculated so far.
No less than Vice Mayor Honey Lacuna, herself a doctor, administered the Sinovac vaccine on Moreno at the Osmena High School in Tondo at 8 a.m.
So far, the city has vaccinated 41,692 as of 8:10 p.m. of April 3, covering the A1, A2 and A3 categories namely the medical and health frontliners, senior citizens with comorbidities and those aged 18-58 also with comorbidities.
Moreno thanked the national government under the leadership of President Rodrigo Duterte, the Department of Health headed by Francisco Duque III and the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for allowing the mayors to get vaccinated, being at the forefront of their local jurisdictions’ fight against the pandemic.
With the vaccination, Moreno said landing in the severe case of COVID is now at least one worry less for him. Moreno had been sleeping in his City Hall office since the pandemic began and he had since been swabbed at least eight times after being exposed to an infected fellow official or employee.
According to Moreno, mayors like him are not like ‘Superman’ and being exposed to COVID-19 as they lead the city in its efforts to stem the transmission on a daily basis makes them at risk of getting it and even dying from it. He cited the case of many mayors who have either contracted the virus, some even twice, or died from it.
Lacuna said she is so happy that Moreno now has added protection from the coronavirus, saying the city and its people need his leadership during these very challenging times.
As a doctor, Lacuna was able to get inoculated ahead of Moreno and she had since been on top of the city’s vaccination rollout where her expertise as a medical professional had been put to good use, after the mayor gave her supervisory power over the health cluster of the local government.
Moreno meanwhile took the opportunity to remind those who have been vaccinated to keep practicing the minimum health protocols particularly the wearing of face masks, frequent hand washing and social distancing, stressing the vaccination does not guarantee any immunity from getting infected with the virus.
