ABOUT 4,000 youths aged 12 to 17 years old have registered at the opening of the Cebu City Government’s registration for their vaccination against coronavirus disease (Covid-19) Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2021.
Councilor Dave Tumulak, who was tasked by Mayor Edgardo Labella to monitor the vaccination sites, said 3,390 of the youths were healthy while 478 had comorbidities.
The City Government, now under the leadership of acting Mayor Michael Rama, has opened the registration of minors through Pabakunata.com to prepare Cebu City once the Department of Health gives the go signal for the individuals in this age bracket to be vaccinated.
Dr. Jeffrey Ibones, head of the Cebu City Health Department, said they are still waiting for final guidelines from the national government on when they can start vaccinating the youth.
For now, Ibones said, they will continue to accept registration first so that they can easily secure vaccines for those in the list.
He said the city has several vaccination sites that can be provided to minors for a rapid vaccination rollout.
Meanwhile, vaccination on the general adult population in Cebu has started because the island is among the priority areas of the government due to its high number of Covid-19 cases, the Visayas Vaccination Operations Center (VVOC) said.
Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, VVOC spokesperson and Department of Health (DOH) 7 chief pathologist, said the general population has always been included in the vaccination group.
“The provision that vaccination is open to the general population actually means one can get vaccinated even if he/she does not belong to the subgroups, and it also means the vaccination is open to all areas whether those identified only as priority areas due to the high cases of Covid-19,” Loreche told SunStar Cebu.
Priority lanes for A2 (senior citizens) and A3 (persons with comorbidities) will remain during the vaccination process.
Covid-19 new case numbers have since gone down in Cebu since their August 2021 highs.
Loreche said there are still no updates on the vaccination of minors aged 12-17 as they are still awaiting developments from Metro Manila that will be the first to conduct the vaccination.
Vaccination of minors in select hospitals in Luzon, particularly in the capital, is expected to start on Friday, Oct. 15, 2021.
“That should be cascaded after the pilot study that will be conducted in select hospitals in Metro Manila,” she said.
She said those with comorbidities in the pediatric age are the ones who will initially get jabbed.
Loreche also announced that 99.9 percent, or 131,965, of the 131,989 registered health workers in Central Visayas are now fully vaccinated against Covid-19, with only 24 still waiting for their second dose schedule.
Loreche continued to call on the public to get their shots.
She assured Cebu will still have a happy Christmas even if it won’t reach the targeted population for vaccination to reach herd immunity provided all stakeholders cooperate to keep cases low through the strict adherence to the minimum public health measures.
This, as Metro Cebu continued to lag behind its daily vaccination target of 19,692.
Loreche said only 9,637 individuals were vaccinated from Oct. 8 to 10, or about 3,212 daily, which is just 16.3 percent of the daily target of 19,692. (PAC, JOB)