More vaccine hubs including mobile vaccination campaigns are being eyed by the City Government of Davao in an effort to speed up inoculation of residents to keep them protected from COVID-19 and its highly transmissible Delta variant.
In her Special Hour program on the city government’s Disaster Radio last Monday, Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio said they are adding seven more vaccination centers from its current 17 centers, and also increase their daily target from 10,000 to 15,000.
“We see that, although we are able to target 10,000 (jabs) per day, we see that it is not fast enough… So, we need to create more team para mas mapadaghan nato ang atoang vaccinations,” she said during the program.
The city has set up 17 vaccination centers across three districts, mostly in public schools and malls, as it targets to give COVID-19 jabs to 1.2 million residents.
The city began its inoculation last March, receiving various COVID-19 vaccine brands including Sinovac, AstraZeneaca, Pfizer, and Jansen &Jansen. As of August 14, the city has rolled out 453,424 for the first dose, but 297,201 persons have completed their second dose, or 24.7% of the target 1.2 miilion.
The mayor said that with the availability of more COVID-19 vaccines the city government will see to it that it will complete the roll out of the first dose of vaccines by the end of the year. They have also drafted a letter to the Department of Health presenting its vaccination plan and asking them for their support.
Other initiatives
In addition to the existing COVID-19 vaccination hubs, Duterte said that they also asked the city council to initiate a mobile vaccination program which will prioritize the A2 (senior citizens) and A3 (with comorbidities) categories in different barangays in Davao City.
“These are the categories with high death rates. So what they do is set-up and go, meaning they will identify a site that is coordinated with the barangay, they will set-up and schedule it for a certain day then they roll-out vaacines and they pack-up at the end of the day and for the next week they move to another site or other barangay,” she explained.
The Office of the Vice Mayor was the first to organize its own mobile vaccination team catering to senior citizens staying in homes and institutions. However, the mayor said the effort is only for the short term and vaccine rollout needs to continue.
Currently, two councilors are already planning to set up its mobile vaccination program in District 1 while one councilor in District 3 already started the program catering one area in Gawad Kalinga village for Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in Los Amigos.
“I see that this combined efforts are still not enough, so this time we approached the councilors, and we asked them if you have relatives who are doctors or you are a doctor, you want to help out sa Covid-19 vaccination roll-out nato, we would like to request you to create teams,” she said.
The city government has also set up an express lane for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) as they need to complete their full doses before employment in other countries.
Davao City has recorded 3,557 active COVID-19 cases as of August 17.
