BACOLOD City – This city has inoculated more than 18,000 residents since the start of its coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mass vaccination on March 5, data (as of May 17) from the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and the COVID-19 Vaccination Council (CoVaC) showed.
After a month of vaccination rollout at the Bacolod City Government Center and receiving more supplies from the national government, the CoVaC decided to expand it to two malls here: SM City Bacolod (starting May 3) and Ayala Malls Capitol Central (starting May 8).
Arrangements are also underway for one at the Robinsons Place Bacolod.
“On May 11, more vaccines arrived from the national government – 19,420 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines. This is roughly 15 percent share in that particular allocation for Western Visayas of 127,000 doses,” the EOC said.
The target vaccinees in these rollouts continue to be the remaining frontline healthcare workers (A1), senior citizens (A2) and persons with comorbidities (A3).
According to City Administrator Em Ang, executive director of EOC, the CoVaC also increased the number of vaccination centers here by opening more facilities in clustered barangays to facilitate faster vaccination rollout from May 14 to 21.
These were in barangays Alangilan, Alijis, Banago, Bata, Estefania, Felisa, Granada, Handumanan, Mandalagan, Mansilingan, Montevista, Pahanocoy, Punta Taytay, Singcang-Airport, Taculing, Tangub, and Villamonte.
Several other barangays were grouped under the ABES Cluster, the ETCS Cluster, the Barangay 38 Cluster, and the Barangay 39 Cluster.
On May 17, a total of 3,681 residents were inoculated in 15 vaccination centers here.
Of the number, 837 were vaccinated in Villamonte, Ayala Malls Capitol Central (564), Taculing (408), SMX Convention Center of SM City (369), Granada (232), Mansilingan (211), ABES Cluster (179), Barangay 39 Cluster (175), Mandalagan (115), Singcang-Airport (115), Alijis (109), Banago (100), Tangub (98), Bata (85), and ETCS Cluster (84).
Mayor Evelio Leonardia said public confidence in the vaccine was getting stronger, as evidenced by the increase in the number of people already inoculated.
“This is already proof that the vaccines are safe. I’m hoping that more people will come to be vaccinated,” he added.
The mayor emphasized that getting vaccinated is “our major way of winning against COVID-19.”
“Let’s do our best to achieve our target number of vaccinees so that we reach herd immunity as soon as we can,” Leonardia said./PN
