Over 3K schools to host vaccine operations – DOH

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AT least 3,000 schools nationwide will host COVID-19 vaccination operations, the Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday as classes are set to resume next week.

Health Undersecretary and DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said the 3,131 schools were chosen because these are “in strategic locations, are in highly-populated communities, and may also host those coming from other nearby schools looking to get vaccinated.”

The chosen schools are a mix of new vaccination sites and those which have already been hosting vaccination operations.

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Vergeire said the number may increase.

“We will add more schools as more children return to school. This way, we can further encourage our mothers to have their children vaccinated,” she said in a briefing.
However, she said, not all schools will host vaccination activities.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean that all schools in the country will have vaccination sites. That is not going to be efficient for government,” she said.

Vergeire also said the DOH is amenable the continued use of schools or campuses as isolation and quarantine facilities “because the students will already use them when classes open.”

She said it would be better if COVID-19 patients will just undergo home quarantine.

“Since we have allowed home quarantine, the need for this kind of outside or external quarantine and isolation facilities becomes less of importance for government,” she said.
“What we need right now would be to adequately monitor all of these people doing home-based isolation and quarantine,” she added.

Aside from students, Vergeire said they continue to encourage teachers and non-teaching personnel of schools to get jabbed. This, she said, as the government continues to work on ensuring that children will be safe from COVID-19 in schools.

On whether to require teachers and non-teaching personnel to get vaccinated, Vergeire said the DOH is leaving the decision to the Department of Education. She noted there is no law or protocol hat prevents an unvaccinated individual from working.

“We leave it to the Department of Education to ensure that even though that they are going to deploy these unvaccinated teachers, they can ensure that all of the safety protocols are in place so that we can be able to better protect our children,” said Vergeire.

According to the DepEd, about 37,000 teachers are unvaccinated against COVID-19.

VAX PROGRAM

Vergeire said the DOH has recommended to President Marcos Jr. amendments to Republic Act No. 11525, or the law creating the vaccination program, in the event he decides not to extend the validity of the declaration of a “state of calamity” due to the pandemic.

The state of calamity ends of September 12.

In particular, she said, there is a need to continue ensuring the availability of COVID-19 vaccines under emergency use authority (EUA) despite the lifting of the state of calamity.

This, she said, is especially since only Janssen /Johnson & Johnson has applied for a certificate of product registration (CPR) with the Food and Drug Administration, so far.

“The EUA of the COVID-19 vaccines must remain in effect (despite the lifting of the state of calamity),” she said.

The lifting of the state of calamity will effectively invalidate the EUAs issued to the COVID-19 jabs.

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Through the EUAs, the Philippines has vaccinated about 72.1 million individuals.
About 17 million Filipinos that have received their first booster shots, and about 1.8 million priority individuals have received the second booster shots.

DOH records also show almost 6.8 million senior citizens are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 while 9.8 million adolescents (aged 12-17 years) and over 4.4 million children (5-11 years) are fully-vaccinated.

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