San Juan is top city in NCR in terms of vaccination registrants, says mayor

STORAGE FACILITY / JANUARY 21, 2021 San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora shows the storage facility for the conventional vaccine, which need only 2-8 degrees centigrade temperature, that the city government set up at the San Juan City Gym on Thursday, January 21, 2020. The LGU initially ordered 100,000 doses of AstraZeneca. INQUIRER PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

MANILA, Philippines — San Juan City has ranked number one among all cities in Metro Manila in terms of the current number of registrants for the Covid-19 vaccination, Mayor Francis Zamora said Monday.

Zamora said over 24,0000 residents of San Juan have so far registered to receive the inoculation shots, as he explained why he volunteered to be the first person to be vaccinated against Covid-19 in the city.

“My intention here is to increase the trust and confidence of our people in our vaccine process. In fact as of today, we have 24,559 registrants already,” he said over ABS-CBN News Channel.

“We were informed by the DOH that we are now ranked number one in Metro Manila in terms of the number of registrants. I believe that by volunteering it shows people that the vaccine process can be trusted, that the mayor himself will undergo the process,” he added.

He also said he was not intending to bypass the health workers by volunteering to receive the first Covid-19 vaccine shot in the locality.

The city government earlier signed a tripartite agreement with British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca and the national government for the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines. Zamora earlier said the city government has allotted P50 million for the purchase of the inoculation shots.

According to Zamora, the local government unit (LGU) is targeting to vaccinate around 85,000 of its residents against Covid-19 to trigger herd immunity, a concept in vaccination wherein a virus can no longer spread easily because enough people are immune to it.

“Based on the 2015 census, we have 122,000 constituents. This is the general population based on a 2015 census. If we compute that at 70 percent we are targeting around 85,400 people, and right now we are at 28.76 percent already,” the mayor said.

“Once the vaccine rolls out, I am very optimistic that this number will increase,” he added.

Meanwhile, San Juan City residents who may need medical assistance for possible reactions to Covid-19 vaccines may benefit from the P150 million fund in the city’s public assistance center, according to the mayor.

“We have a total of P150 million in our public assistance center. This is not just specific for Covid-19. This is basically a pool of funds that we use for medical assistance. If and when a constituent will need medical attention because of any vaccine side effects, then we can basically just throw out the funds from this P150 million that we have allocated for this year,” he said.

Residents of San Juan who wish to receive Covid-19 vaccine shots may register in their respective barangay halls or health centers, or online through the LGU’s COVID-19 Vaccination Online Registration Form.

EDV