Manila to give vaccine jabs daily to 250,000 residents

MANILA: Metro Manila mayors aim to give coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine jabs daily to 250,000 residents to prevent the spread of the dreaded Delta variant during the two weeks of the strictest lockdown, called the enhanced community quarantine ( ECQ) imposed by the government from Aug. 6 to 20.

This was announced on Saturday by Benhur Abalos, the head of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), who admited the target was a “tall order.”

But he said the mayors were determined to undertake the campaign as a precautionary move against the Delta variant which is wreaking havoc in much of the world.

“ECQ is not a walk in the park. We have to do everything right now (while the lockdown) is in effect to stop this threat,” Abalos said.

He added that of late, Metro Manila has been giving an average of COVID vaccine jabs of from 107,000 to 130,000 residents a day.

In this light, Abalos said the mayors asked the national government to allocate to them a total of four million doses of vaccine to enable them to achieve the daily target of 250,000 a day.

“We asked for four million doses so we could achieve the target,” he said.

“We aim to do 250,000 jabs a day. This is a tall order.” A spokesman of Secretary Carlito Galvez, the vaccine czar, reported on Saturday that the goverment has agreed to allocate the four million COVID vaccine doses requested by the mayors.

He added that Galvez also agreed to allocate another 2.5 million doses for the four neighboring provinces covered by the so-called NCR Plus.

NCR, which stands for the National Capital Region as Metro Manila is officially called, has four provinces also covered by the two-week ECQ - Cavite, Rizal and Laguna in Southern Luzon as well as Bulacan in Central Luzon.

The NCR, composed of 16 cities and one town with a total population of more than 13 million, has been considered the epicenter of the pandemic.

But the region succeeded in helping reduce the alarming rise in COVID infections until the threat of the Delta variant came into view.

At the same time, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire reported that they likewise supported the move of Metro Manila mayors to initiate house-to-house inoculation campaigns to help contain the spread of the Delta variant.

This was in line with the decision of Metro Manila mayors to ramp up their inoculation drives despite the imposition of the strictest ECQ, which limits the movement of people.

Vergeire said house-to-house vaccinations would help stop overcrowding at the inoculation centers.