LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – Municipal officials and health workers are seeking the assistance of individuals, either overseas or in other parts of the country, who were already vaccinated to come out in the open and help convince frontliners, especially health workers, to avail of the government’s vaccination program in the locality.
Mayor Romeo K. Salda admitted that the acceptance of the available vaccines among frontliners in the municipality is approximately 30 percent, thus, the need to aggressive inform and educate this sector to convince them to avail of the safe vaccines based on the priority list issued by the inter-agency task force for the management of emerging infectious diseases.
He called on individuals living in other parts of the world who were already vaccinated to convince their relatives in the municipality, especially the frontliners, to avail of the vaccines that will be provided to them to help in containing the spread of the dreaded Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the locality and help achieve the desired herd immunity among Filipinos.
The local chief executive stipulated that municipal officials and frontliners had been doing their part in informing and educating their colleagues to avail of the available vaccines that had been delivered by the health department but there are many frontliners who have yet to make decisions on whether or not to avail of the same.
According to him, the negative reports on mainstream and social media on the vaccines and the misconceptions on their efficacy have greatly contributed in the low acceptance by the frontliners and even the general public on the vaccines, thus, the need for a holistic approach to ensure there will be an increase in the number of people who will avail of the vaccines once the government rolls out the mass vaccination program.
Mayor Salda claimed the municipal government will continue enhancing its information and education campaign to provide adequate information to the people for them to freely accept the vaccines.
Earlier, the local government also rolled out the master listing of qualified vaccinees based on the priority list for easier implementation of the government’s mass vaccination program once there will be available vaccines that will be delivered in the municipality.
The mayor urged frontliners who continue to doubt the vaccines that have been made available for them to reconsider their decision because their safety is also the concern of the government and they do not want them to be stressed with the recent surges in COVID cases that will surely have a serious negative impact to the efficiency and effectivity of the local health care system.
La Trinidad recently conducted the vaccination of frontliners even with the minimal number of health workers who voluntarily had themselves vaccinated to serve as an example for their fellow frontliners to emulate. By HENT
