THE Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) will tap the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) and basic education teachers to serve as data encoders during the “Bayanihan Bakunahan” National Vaccination Days aimed at vaccinating some 14 percent of the Philippine population in a three-day blitz from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1, 2021.
In a statement Monday, Nov. 22, DILG Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said the department is now coordinating with the National Youth Commission and the SK Federation on the matter after the youth sector expressed willingness to lend manpower support for the three-day vaccination drive against Covid-19.
As for the Department of Education (DepEd), it will not only deploy teachers to be encoders during the vaccination drive but also allow the use of its schools as vaccination sites.
Malaya called on residents who are already vaccinated to volunteer their services to their local government units because there is still a need for more vaccinators, encoders and other types of manpower.
The government aims to vaccinate 15 million Filipinos in 16 regions outside Metro Manila during the three-day activity to reach the country’s goal of population protection at the soonest possible time, Malaya said.
Only 32.9 million of the estimated 109 million Filipinos were fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the National Task Force Against Covid-19 said Monday, Nov. 22.
The country has a huge supply of vaccines which it hopes to administer soonest to help the country end the health and economic crises brought by the Covid-19 pandemic.
To encourage vaccination, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases has required unvaccinated employees to undergo RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) or antigen testing every two weeks at their own expense, or be barred from working on site beginning Dec. 1.
Officially declared by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has claimed 47,074 lives after infecting more than 2.8 million Filipinos.
Also assisting in the vaccination drive through the provision of encoders is the Department of Labor and Employment through its Government Internship Program.
Medical teams from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, Bureau of Fire Protection and the Philippine National Police (PNP) will also be tapped for the vaccination drive.
The PNP will maintain peace and order at the vaccination sites, but in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas, it will be the Armed Forces of the Philippines that will ensure the peaceful conduct of the vaccination at the vaccination sites.