BONTOC, Mountain Province – The provincial government and the health department are having a difficulty in convincing senior citizens to be vaccinated against the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and efforts are being done to enhance the province’s information and education campaign (IEC) to ensure the elderly are inoculated the soonest.
Gov. Bonifacio C. Lacwasan, Jr. stated that the province is doing well in the aggressive roll out of the government’s mass vaccination program with an average of over 71 percent vaccination rate spread among the members of the identified priority sectors that should be inoculated.
However, he admitted that the inoculation rate of the senior citizens classified under the A2 priority sector is only around 40 percent primarily because of the hesitance of the elderly in being vaccinated for various reasons.
The governor claimed one of the reasons the senior citizens are hesitant to be vaccinated is that they are already old and that the vaccines should be given to the younger ones. That is why the provincial government is looking for strategies that can convince them to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
For this month, the inter-agency task force for the management of emerging infectious diseases has placed Mountain Province under modified general community quarantine, the most lenient among the prevailing levels of community quarantine for various local governments in the country.
Lacwasan pointed out that the temporary setback of the provincial government in the roll out of the vaccination among senior citizens will be addressed by the concerned offices the soonest so that the elderly in the different parts of the province will not be left behind in the provision of available vaccines.
According to him, it is worthy to emphasize to the people that being vaccinated will spare them from contracting severe COVID-19 and avoid untimely death thus it is best for them to be vaccinated.
Lacwasan expressed his gratitude to the provincial, municipal and barangay officials, the health workers, the employees of both the provincial and municipal governments, representatives of concerned government agencies, the private sector and volunteers for their sustained dedication in assisting in the immediate roll out of the government’s mass vaccination program.
He emphasized that the passion, dedication, determination and sacrifice of the local officials and employees and the volunteers just to make sure that a significant percentage of the population will be immediately vaccinated is highly laudable because they are actually risking their safety just to ensure more people will be spared from the virus by making sure they are vaccinated.
Lacwasan urged the people of the province to further improve their compliance to the minimum public health standards even if they are vaccinated to prevent them from being infected. By HENT
