NOT all individuals under the “A4” category list of the national vaccination program will be priority recipients of the COVID-19 vaccine, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said yesterday.
The A4 category includes workers from essential industries and economic frontliners and lists 17 subgroups, from the original 13, such as transportation, food service and market, hotel, and security. It was finalized and approved last Friday by the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).
Nograles said only those who are “exposed” to the public will be prioritized under the A4 category in the immunization list.
“So ang konteksto na dapat na lagi nating tatandaan, kung sino iyung exposed, kung sino iyung humaharap sa publiko, kung sino iyung hindi nakatago sa office. iyung hindi naka-work-from-home, iyung naka-expose talaga (The context that we need to remember is those who are exposed or who face the public, and this does not include those who are in the office or work from home. They should really be exposed),” he said in a radio interview.
He said local government units will help screen essential works to determine if they fall under the “customer-facing” or public-facing” or “field workers” as against those who are working from home or those who are confined in the offices, and those that may fall under the “B” category.
IATF Resolution 10 lists the A4 category subgroups as commuter transport (land, air, and sea), including logistics; public and private wet and dry market vendors; frontline workers in groceries, supermarkets, delivery services; workers in manufacturing for food, beverage, medical and pharmaceutical products; frontline workers in food retail, including food service delivery; frontline workers in private and government financial services; and frontline workers in hotels and accommodation establishments.
Also in the A4 group are priests, rabbis, imams, and other religious leaders; security guards/ personnel assigned in offices, agencies, and organizations identified in the list of priority industries/sectors; frontline workers in private and government news media; customer-facing personnel of telecoms, cable and internet service providers, electricity distribution and water distribution utilities; frontline personnel in basic education and higher education institutions and agencies; and overseas Filipino workers, including those scheduled for deployment within two months;
Workers in law/justice, security, and social protection sectors; frontline government workers engaged in the operations of government transport system, quarantine inspection; worker safety inspection and other COVID-19 response activities; frontline government workers in charge of tax collection, assessment of businesses for incentives, election, national ID, data collection personnel; diplomatic community and Department of Foreign Affairs personnel in consular operations; and the Department of Public Works and Highways personnel in charge of monitoring government infrastructure projects.
Nograles said that with the identification of essential or frontline workers, the national government needs to know how many are the actual workers and how any are living in each province or city or municipality to determine how much vaccine doses can be allocated per area once the vaccines arrive.
He said local government units are asked to submit a master list to national government.
From the master list the national government through the Department of Health can “program the allocation per LGU,” he said.
The “B” category or second priority group lists most of other workers who do not fall in the “A” category, like other teachers and social workers (B1), other government workers (B2), other essential workers (B3), other socio-demographic groups at significantly higher risk other than senior citizens and indigenous people (B4), other overseas Filipino workers (B5), other remaining workforce (B6).
A third priority or category “C” includes the rest of the Filipino population not otherwise included in any of the A and B groups.
Nograles assured the public that there would be enough vaccines as the bulk of procured jabs are set to arrive starting next month.
At least 2 million doses of vaccines are expected to arrive before the end of the month, 4.2 million doses in May, 10.5 million June, 13.5 million in July, and 15 to 20 million doses from August to December.
These are all procured vaccines and do not include the expected donation under the World Health Organization-backed COVAX Facility.
Rep. Michael Defensor (PL, Anakalusugan) has filed a bill seeking to grant tax benefits to private corporations and rich individuals who will sponsor the vaccination of 933,000 teachers and 23 million children in the public school system.
Under House Bill 9200, private entities paying for the COVID-19 jabs can claim 150 percent of what they spent for the shots as “additional deduction” from gross income subject to tax.
“We want to ramp up the immunization of our teachers, and later, our children, by encouraging the private sector to come in and help,” said Defensor, vice chair of the House committee on welfare of children.
The bill seeks to expressly include COVID-19 vaccines as qualified donations under the 23-year-old Adopt-A-School Program.
Defensor earlier said he expects COVID-19 shots for Filipino children below 16 years to be approved by regulators and be available in the country by middle of 2022. — With Wendell Vigilia
