The Davao City government will soon start administering anti-Covid vaccines in health centers to make it a “semi-permanent” immunization activity.
During her Special Hour on the city-owned Davao City Disaster Radio on Monday, Mayor Inday Sara Duterte said that the city is gearing towards folding up all its vaccination sites but will continue to administer anti-Covid vaccines in the barangay health centers in addition to the ongoing mobile and door-to-door vaccinations.
Mayor Sara said the decision to shift the anti-Covid vaccination hubs to the barangay health centers followed her instruction to the Covid-19 Task Force to slowly wrap up vaccinations in all public jab sites.
“Akoa na silang gi-instructionan na maghinay-hinay na sila og wrap-up sa atoang vaccine jabs and mobalhin dinha sa atoang mga health centers para mahimong semi-permanent ang availability sa atoang mga bakuna sa atoang health centers (I instructed them to slowly wrap up our vaccine jabs and transfer it to the health centers so that the availability of the vaccines in our health centers will be semi-permanent),” Mayor Sara said.
Currently, the city government has a total of 12 public vaccination hubs, of which nine (9) are in the malls, two (2) inside parks, and one (1) in a school (Calinan Elementary School).
Mayor Sara said that while the instructions had been made the execution of this shift will be up to the vaccination cluster. She added that the taking effect of this directive may take more than a week.
“Mao palang na siya ang instruction nato, taking effect will be more than a week kay dili man ingon ana kadali mag-transfer ug personnel and sistema sa atoang health center (So far that is my only instruction, the taking effect will be more than a week because it is not easy to transfer the personnel and system to our health centers),” she said.
In a text message to the City Information Office (CIO), Davao City Covid-19 Task Force Spokesperson Michelle Schlosser said that the vaccination cluster has been meeting to discuss the mayor’s directive.
The mayor said that only the vaccination hubs will be terminated and not the mobile vaccination and door-to-door vaccinations.
As of June 10, 2022 data, a total of 1,318,682 individuals already received their second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine primary series and 1, 336, 961 received their first dose.
For the first booster shots, 269,059 already had their booster dose and 20, 828 were inoculated with the second booster dose.
While the number of vaccinated people in the city is high, the city mayor encouraged people to always wear a face mask as their first line of protection, reiterating that lifting the mandatory wearing of a face mask was not considered by the city as it was also not allowed by the Department of Health (DOH). CIO
