LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The municipal government recently intensified its ongoing vaccination of the residents of the town’s sixteen barangays to help the province achieve the desired herd immunity that will contribute in ongoing efforts to lower the prevailing alert level status and pave the way for the easing up of community quarantine restrictions.
Mayor Romeo K. Salda claimed that aside from the continuous operation of the local government’s two vaccination sites at the municipal park and at the Km. 5 parking area, various health teams organized by the municipal health office are now conducting barangay and sitio-based vaccination to inoculate more people.
Further, he said that the municipal government is also working on the actual data of vaccinated residents because there are a good number of residents from the different barangays who had already been vaccinated in their workplaces outside the municipality for them to be included in the vaccinated category to improve the town’s vaccination rate.
The municipal chief executive stated the need for the municipal health office to complete the data on the number of vaccinated and unvaccinated residents so that appropriate strategies could be implemented to increase the town’s vaccination rate and allow the municipal to reach herd immunity.
Mayor Salda urged residents to honestly declare their vaccination status to visiting health workers so that the municipal government can establish the actual data of vaccinated individuals and those who were vaccinated in their workplaces outside the locality.
At present, only the town of Buguias had been reclassified to be among the areas are placed Alert Level 1 while the remaining 12 towns and the whole province remains under Alert level 2 where there are more restrictions on the movement of people.
According to him, the threat of the dreaded Coronavirus Disease (COVID) 2019 still exists and people must sustain their compliance to the minimum public health standards such as the mandatory wearing of face mask, observance of physical distancing and the practice of personal hygiene and disinfection to prevent incidents that might trigger the transmission of the virus and a surge in cases in the future that might compromise the local health care system and unduly stress the frontliners.
Salda asserted that the various frontliners deserve a break from over two years of dealing with the virus and it is best for people to take responsibility for their health by continuing to adhere to the basic health and safety protocols as part of the ongoing transition to the better normal.
He stipulated there is an ongoing improvement in the town’s vaccination rate with the intensified barangay and sitio-based vaccination campaign and he remains hopeful that the projected herd immunity will be realized by the municipality within the next several weeks.
The mayor expressed his gratitude to the utmost cooperation of the residents to the ongoing vaccination of unvaccinated individuals while respecting the decision of some people not to be inoculated for religious and personal beliefs.
