PASAY City Mayor Emi Calixto-Rubiano is offering various incentives for senior citizens to encourage them to have themselves vaccinated following the looming threat of the Delta variant which could wreak havoc once it manages to enter their city.

This was announced by Mayor Emi in a virtual town hall meeting on Tuesday that tackled threats posed by the Delta variant and attended by representative s from various barangays and city hall departments and offices.

It was gathered that the city government is preparing a raffle event where names of fully vaccinated senior citizens will be entered.

On recommendations of DOH Regional Director Dra. Anna Ong-Lim, Mayor Emi also said that they will hold separate raffles for barangays that have successfully inoculated 100 percent of their senior citizens and those with comorbidities.

“Ginagawa po natin ito para mahikayat ang ating mga kababayan na magpabakuna sapagkat ito ang unang panlaban natin para hindi kumalat at makapaminsala sa ating lungsod ang Delta variant,” Mayor Emi said.

During the same meeting, Dra. Lim also tackled the current situation of the dreaded variant and recommended various steps on how to prevent it from spreading if not entering in the city.

She advised the city government and the barangay officials to intensify their prevention, detection, contact tracing, isolation and recovery of patients suspected to be infected by the virus.

For her part, Mayor Calixto-Rubiano emphasized cooperation among all the city residents to help them ward off the entry of the dangerous virus.

“Delta variant is real and is a serious threat. Magtulong-tulong po tayo at huwag nating payagan na tumaas ulit ang mga kaso sa ating lungsod katulad ng mga nakaraang buwan,” she said.

To recall, on March 2 this year, the Department of Health confirmed that the first South African variant patients in the country were Pasay residents. There were 521 active cases in the city at that time.

Active cases in Pasay quickly rose to 1,024 by March 25 prompting Mayor Calixto- Rubiano to place two barangays under total lockdown and 136 barangays and areas under granular lockdowns.

The city also hired additional contact tracers and tripled its testing capacity, from around 6,000 swab tests in February to 17,000 in March and April and intensified their PDTIR.

Mayor Calixto-Rubiano’s aggressive moves earned praises from Malacanang after she managed to significantly lower the cases in just one month.

Currently, Pasay has one of the lowest active cases in Metro Manila at around 50 and highest efficiency rate in the utilization of vaccines among its residents.