San Juan City boosts vaccination drive via on-ground visits

MANILA – The San Juan City government has launched a “house-to-house vaccine campaign” aimed at encouraging more residents to participate in the national Covid-19 vaccination program, Mayor Francis Zamora said on Wednesday.

Zamora said the various teams were tasked to go house-to-house visits to assist residents to sign up on the spot to the city’s online vaccine registration drive.

“Araw-araw mayrong umiikot sa mga barangay na may dalang mga tablets at saka Wi-Fi (We have personnel roaming around everyday carrying tablets and Wi-Fi with them),” Zamora said in an interview during the visit of the Covid-19 Coordinated Operations to Defeat Epidemic (CODE) team, led by the National Task Force (NTF) and the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) in San Juan City.

Residents may also visit their respective barangay offices for manual registration to get free shots of the Covid-19 vaccine.

“We do not want any obstacle or impediment on registration simply because you do not have Wi-Fi access or internet access, so (there is a) very broad po yung opportunities to register and we are exerting all effort,” Zamora said.

As of Feb. 10, the city government has recorded around 23,202 registrants who have expressed willingness to get free Covid-19 vaccine, which accounts for about 19 percent of the city’s total population.

Of these registrants, 3,708 are health workers and 19,494 are from other sectors.

Citywide vaccination plan

Zamora laid out the city’s Covid-19 vaccination plan to members of CODE team.

The city government, he said, has started running simulations as part of its citywide Covid-19 vaccination campaign and to make sure that they are well-prepared to receive and manage the vaccines, once the supplies become available.

San Juan City has already readied 18 freezers with 16 of these are capable of storing vaccines that require 2 to 8 degrees Celsius temperature, while the rest are ultracold freezers that can accommodate vaccines produced by pharmaceutical firms Pfizer-BioNtech and AstraZeneca.

The city has initially identified five vaccination centers that are already on-standby.

“We have trained several of our personnel to facilitate the vaccination program. We have 40 teams of vaccinators and we hope to finish vaccinating all San Juaneños in 43 days,” he said.

The city government has already secured 100,000 doses of vaccine through a tripartite agreement with the AstraZeneca and the national government.

It has also reserved 10,000 doses of Moderna vaccines, while the rest will be covered by the national government.

Fund for possible adverse effect

Meanwhile, Zamora said the city government has available funds to assist the eligible vaccine recipients who may experience any adverse reactions upon administering coronavirus vaccines.

“We have about PHP150 million worth of funding for medical assistance. Medication or hospitalization na kakailanganin kung sakaling may (that will be needed in case of) adverse effects, it will fall under that fund,” said Zamora.

He said the budget will be taken from San Juan City’s public assistance center, the Department of Health, and the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

“Yung mga medication may fund po ‘yan. Itong fund na ‘to, it’s more than enough (We have a fund for the medication. This fund is more than enough) even if you compute the number of the registrants versus the possible expense that we will incur, kayang-kaya ho ng pondo natin iyan (our fund can cover for it),” he said.

Zamora said there’s no need for the city to set aside a specific amount for the medication of vaccine recipients who may suffer the jabs’ adverse effects since they already have a general fund that is specific to public assistance.

The mayor said they are targeting to inoculate at least 70 percent of the city’s estimated 85,000 population to achieve herd immunity.

In a letter dated Feb. 10, Zamora has formally asked permission from IATF-EID chairperson and Health Secretary Francisco Duque III to allow him to be among the initial recipients of the Covid-19 shots in San Juan, to increase the trust and confidence of his constituents in the vaccination process.

“I have volunteered myself to be the first to be vaccinated in the city so as to encourage our constituents to register as well,” Zamora said. “I want to be the first to show people that the mayor himself is confident in the vaccination process, so people know that the vaccines we have, which were approved by the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] for Emergency Use, are safe and effective.”

The city is using a real-time system in the Covid-19 vaccine registration, he said.

“So far I believe we are successful but we are still below our target, I would like to push this number even further in the coming weeks and I also believe that once the actual vaccination process has started tataas pa yung bilang na yan (the number could still increase),” Zamora said.

Zamora cited the importance of the initial rollout of the vaccination program saying: “It will set a tone and the trend for the weeks to come in our vaccination.”