Half of hotel workers in Metro Manila have received COVID booster shots — DOT

FILE PHOTO: A syringe is filled with a dose of Pfizer’s coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine.

MANILA, Philippines — Some 50 percent of hotel workers in the National Capital Region have already received their booster shots against COVID-19, the Department of Tourism (DOT) reported on Wednesday.

The DOT-NCR Office Data revealed that 12,693 out of the region’s 25,386 hotel workers have already received their COVID-19 booster shots.

“We are glad to see the willingness of our tourism workers to get vaccinated grow over the past few months. We continue to encourage them to avail themselves of the free vaccine as this is a critical component for the industry to rebound and thrive in the new normal,” Tourism Secretary Berna Romulo-Puyat said in a statement.

DOT also said a total of 282,780 individuals, or 88.38 percent of the country’s initial target population of 325,489 tourism workers from various tourism-related industries, have already been inoculated against COVID-19.

The Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) registered the highest rate of vaccination of tourism workers with 104.24 percent after completing the vaccination of its 12,019 target tourism workers, but managed to inoculate a total of 12,485 individuals.

CAR is followed by NCR with 99.89 percent, or 44,186 of the region’s 44,234 initial target tourism workers.

Also registering high rates of vaccination are:

Davao Region – 99.11 percent
Central Luzon – 98.91 percent
Northern Mindanao – 98.48 percent
Bicol Region – 95.49 percent
Eastern Visayas – 94.04 percent
South Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and General Santos City (Soccsksargen) – 91.89 percent
Central Visayas – 90.98 percent

EDV