Quezon IATF, mayors to draw up mass COVID-19 vaccination plan

LUCENA CITY –– The Inter-Agency Task Force and local chief executives in Quezon will meet on Feb. 10 to layout the vaccination plan against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) for the province and its municipalities.

“The IATF will pass a resolution for the mass vaccination in the province,” Roberto Gajo, provincial administrator, said in an online interview Tuesday.

It was learned that the Quezon Mayors League will also hold an urgent meeting on the same day in preparation for the mass immunization program in their respective localities.

Gumaca Mayor Webster Letargo said the association of local chief executives aims to prepare for the orderly implementation of the government’s mass vaccination program.

“Makakaasa po kayo na hindi tayo magpapabaya. Sisiguraduhin lang po natin na handa na rin ang ating mga kababayan para dito,” Letargo said on his Facebook.

(Rest assured that we will not let you down. We just have to make sure that our constituents are ready for it.)

Gajo said the IATF and mayors meetings are the same event.

Letargo said the agenda for the meeting includes Quezon and municipal roadmap for COVID-19 vaccination. He said the mayors would also discuss the resumption of the operations of provincial buses.

On Feb. 8, Lucena Mayor Roderick Alcala allowed two bus companies – the Lucena Lines Inc. and JAC Liner – to resume their regular trips from this provincial capital of Quezon to Biñan City in Laguna province, nearly a year after their operations were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the operations will still be under observation and subject to strict health and safety protocols to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. has warned that local government units not prepared for the COVID-19 vaccine rollout would not receive supplies from the national government to ensure that not a single dose of the drug is wasted.

He said national authorities would inspect the readiness, capacity, and capability of local officials to achieve herd immunity as soon as possible.

Herd immunity is a concept in which a virus can no longer spread easily because enough people are made immune to it via vaccination.

As of Tuesday morning, the Integrated Provincial Health Office listed 7,049 COVID-19 cases with 6,536 recoveries and 234 deaths in the province that currently has 279 active virus carriers.

LZB