ACT-CIS Rep. Jocelyn Tulfo. Image from her facebook account
MANILA, Philippines — A House of Representatives lawmaker on Wednesday urged that police members who will be assigned to Covid-19 hotspots should be vaccinated.
“Please vaccinate those police officers being deployed to the Covid-19 hotspots,” ACT-CIS Rep. Jocelyn Tulfo said in a statement.
“Now that the Sinovac vaccines are available, do use those to protect our police against severe or critical sickness from infection to the coronavirus when they provide security support at the hotspots,” she added.
Tulfo further said that vaccinating the police who will be sent to the Covid-19 hotspots “might also have some preventive effect so that they do not become spreaders when they get assigned elsewhere.”
The lawmaker also urged to give better face masks to police members.
“The KN95 face masks provide better protection than cloth masks or surgical masks,” she said.
Aside from the protection of police members, Tulfo also suggested that the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) implement a two-meter minimum physical distancing in areas where the Covid-19 South African and UK variants are confirmed.
To date, the Philippines has 58 cases of the South African variant, while 118 cases of the UK variant.
According to records of the Department of Health, Metro Manila has the highest number of coronavirus variants among all the regions in the country, with 45 cases of the South African variant while 29 cases of the UK variant.