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Tiangco disagrees with DILG on keeping vax brand secret

May 20, 2021 Edd Reyes 442 views

NAVOTAS City Mayor Toby Tiangco disagreed with the order of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to local government units (LGUs) not to announce in advance the vaccine brand that will be offered in vaccination centers.

”Vaccination is purely voluntary and cannot be forced upon a person. It is the right of the person to know what vaccine will be administered to him. Pushing for “brand agnostic” vaccination will just create distrust,” Mayor Tiangco said in his statement.

“Moreover, there is no such thing as “secret.” Vaccines have to be prepared; we cannot ensure that information on this will not get leaked. Once people learn of the brand, they will just throng to the vaccination site. This will most likely result to chaos and expose the vaccinees to the virus,” the mayor added

Mayor Tiangco belived that managing the vaccine roll out is the solution.

The city chief exective said that in Navotas, those who want to get Pfizer must schedule their appointment. He said they do not allow walk-ins and if the vaccinee does not appear on his schedule, he can no longer avail of the Pfizer vaccine but he could still get other brands.

“We are doing simultaneous inoculation using Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines. Both have high turnout. If vaccine roll out has not been problematic in our city, then there is nothing to solve here. Implementing the “brand agnostic” vaccination might just create a bigger problem than the problem we supposedly want to solve,” mayor Tiangco said.

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