DOLE targets vaccination for essential workers, OFWs on Labor Day

HOMECOMING OFWs who have finished their 14 day quarantine in the city troop to the NAIA Terminal 2 on January 2, 2021 to catch a flight bound for their hometowns in Visayas and Mindanao, after spending the holidays in quarantine facilities in Metro Manila. INQUIRER/ MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

MANILA, Philippines — COVID-19 vaccination for essential workers belonging to the A4 priority group may start on Labor Day if enough vaccine doses will arrive in the country before this date, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said Friday.

Bello said vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. told him that vaccination for essential workers may start on May 1 if the vaccine doses he was expecting will be delivered on time.

“Kung sakaling makarating ‘yung mga vaccines ni Secretary Galvez, sabi niya ay magro-rollout siya ng vaccines sa May 1 para sa ating mga manggagawa lalong lalo na sa ating mga overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)… at sa mga workers, ‘yung mga empleyado natin sa essential services,” Bello said in an online press briefing.

(If the vaccines ordered by Secretary Galvez will arrive as scheduled, he said they will roll-out the vaccines on May 1 for our workers, especially for OFWs…. as well as those in the essential services sector.)

Bello, however, said Galvez did not say how many doses will be allotted for essential workers.

Based on government’s guidelines, frontline personnel in essential sectors belong to the A4 priority group for vaccination. Vaccination is currently being done simultaneously for the first three priority groups, such as healthcare workers, senior citizens, and persons with comorbidity.

Data from the Department of Health and the National Task Force against COVID-19 as of April 20 showed that over 1.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have so far been administered in the country, including 1.3 million doses given as the first shot. A total of 209,456 individuals have completed their second dose of the jabs.

The country has so far received a total of 3,025,600 vaccine doses from Sinovac Biotech and AstraZeneca.

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