Palaweños welcome the planned rollout of COVID vaccines in pharmacies and private clinics by the end of the month as it will be more accessible to the people.
Assistant Store Manager of Robinson’s Supermarket – Ms. Precy S. Arcansalin welcomed the move as it will allow more options to the people.
“I am happy that this will be done so that more will be inoculated by the government. At least, people will have more options—whether to go to the coliseum, malls, and now in the trusted local pharmacies to receive either their first jab of the vaccine or the booster itself thereafter,” Ms. Arcansalin told Palawan Daily.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. bared of the plan to carry out vaccine booster rollout at the pilot pharmacies such as Mercury Drug, Watson’s, The Generics Pharmacy, Generika Drug Store, Southstar Drug, QualiMed, and Healthway – in the National Capital Region (NCR) on January 21.
The same rollout in the regions will still be discussed after the pilot run in NCR.
Individuals aged 18 and above who are categorized to belong to Priority Groups A1-A5 are eligible for booster shots at the pharmacies.
“This is our way forward to hand over the responsibility of the vaccination from the national government-centered to its complete devolution to the LGUs and the private sector in preparation for the future commercialization of the vaccine,” Galvez notes in an earlier interview.
As another surge of COVID-19 cases from the recent Omicron variant is recorded, the government would like to address the growing dilemma by administering more booster shots daily to hit 90 million-booster shot Filipinos by the end of June 2022, with the fervent hope that this will minimize more deaths.
The active cases as of January 17, 2022, runs at 290,938 across the country with newly tallied 37,070 cases.