‘Vaccination is free, safe, and easily available, and we appeal to the Filipinos’ sense of humanity and cooperation, if not their natural desire to survive, to go right on and get the jabs.’
IN the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, which has been running for two years now, the government is finally realizing that simple procedures, especially in the mass vaccination campaign, are delivering the desired results.
With COVID-19 still rampaging in the country’s urban centers, authorities are seeking to ramp up their inoculation drive, and what better way to do this than to shorten and prune erstwhile complicated processes.
Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles, also the presidential spokesman, announced that those who desire to be vaccinated do not need to register before going to inoculation sites and to secure a medical clearance unless they are suffering from certain illnesses.
Part of this simplification policy is the acceptance of walk-ins, even drive-ins in the case of motorists lining up for inoculation, as what is being done by the city of Manila near the Quirino Grandstand.
Nograles announced that there is no need for the monitoring of blood pressure as part of health screening unless the vaccine recipient has a history of hypertension or has symptoms of hypertension and other considerations based on the clinical judgment of the doctor in the vaccination site.
The Duterte spokesman, who also speaks for the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) that determines and disseminates policies on the official government response to COVID-19 said, “You will no longer be asked to present a medical clearance and certification to get vaccinated. This requirement will only apply to those with autoimmune disease, HIV, cancer, malignancy, transplant patients or patients who undergo steroid treatment, and patients with poor prognosis or bedridden patients.”
It is common and scientifically verified knowledge by now that the existing COVID-19 vaccines are our only hope in defeating the virus, initially by preventing deaths and the need for intensive-care hospitalization, because they provide protection against critical and severe cases of COVID-19.
We have a long way to go before reaching the government target of 90 million Filipinos being inoculated by the middle of this year, because so far we have only vaccinated some 54 million of our citizens.
Vaccination is free, safe, and easily available, and we appeal to the Filipinos’ sense of humanity and cooperation, if not their natural desire to survive, to go right on and get the jabs.
