More vaccination sites are being inspected and readied by the City Health Services Office in coordination with the private sector to expand the inoculation of vaccines to identified priority individuals against the Covid-19.
Despite the limited supply of vaccine, City Health Services Officer, Dr. Rowena Galpo, reported they plan to spread out the schedule of vaccination in the identified vaccination mega sites for the comfort of vaccinees and avoid long lines that may cause crowding.
Currently, the city operates the University of Baguio gymnasium, St. Vincent Gym, and SM basement parking from Tuesday to Friday depending on the availability of vaccine.
Galpo said the recently opened Baguio Country Club vaccination site will open Sunday and Monday while the Pines City Doctors Hospital is also negotiating for a Sunday vaccination schedule.
With these developments, Galpo said they are working out for a Saturday schedule to achieve a daily vaccination system in Baguio.
“The available supply of vaccines will be distributed to all the vaccination sites to avoid long lines and hasten the vaccination roll-out,” Galpo said.
The vaccination megasites of the city government are capable of inoculating 1,000 jabs in a day according to CHSO Nurse IV Sonia Insas.
But with the unsteady supply of vaccine, they are forced to adjust vaccination schedules by closing one or two sites to save on personnel mobilization cost.
As of June 15, Baguio City has already inoculated a total of 62,145 first and second doses using the available vaccines Sinovac, AztraZeneca, and Sputnik V for priority sectors A1 – health workers, A2 senior citizens and A3 – persons with comorbidities.
Based on the data from the online vaccination portal bakuna.baguio.gov.ph, Baguio has registered 79,201 target population to be vaccinated for categories A1, A2, and A3 as of June 15.
Insas said the city is ready to implement vaccination of priority A4 covering essential workers once the Department of Health gives its go signal.
“Please understand that due to limited supply of vaccine, we need to follow the priority list of vaccinees. Please be patient, your time will come to receive the vaccine and while waiting do register at our website bakuna.baguio.gov.ph because this is our baseline data for vaccine allocation,” Insas said. – Jessa Samidan
