DOH: Media workers part of B priority group for COVID-19 vaccination

DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire talks with reporters via Zoom meeting in this file photo taken on April 23, 2020. INQUIRER.net file photo / Daphne Galvez

MANILA, Philippines — Media workers will be part of the B priority group for COVID-19 vaccination, the Department of Health (DOH) said Monday.

“Media would be part of the B classification already, together with the other workers in our society,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online press briefing.

The government’s list of priority sectors for vaccination under the B group is as follows:

B1: Teachers, social workers

B2: Other government workers

B3: Other essential workers

B4: Socio-demographic groups at significantly higher risk other than senior citizens and indigenous people

B5: Overseas Filipino Workers

B6: Other remaining workforce

In the same press briefing, Undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) released the list of subgroups included in the A4, or the group of frontline personnel in essential sectors who are included in the priority for COVID-19 vaccination.

Edillon explained that those included in the A4 are economic sectors that have high levels of interaction with or exposure to the public, or are needed to ensure security, consumer and worker safety, and those working in priority government projects.

“As per the recovery cluster and tiningnan kasi namin [are] those who cannot have their own bubble, those who cannot work from home, mga ganung tipo na sectors,” she said.

(As per the recovery cluster, we are looking at those who cannot have their own bubble, those who cannot work from home, those kinds of sectors.)

However, she said the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases still has the final say if ever there will be proposals to include media workers in the A4 priority group.

JPV