DAVAO CITY—The number of residents who were unable or simply refused to get themselves vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus have reached 438,000, and the city health cluster here said areas where these persons reside have been mapped out.
The city government would be resorting to persuasion still, finalizing the strategy to “incentivize” the target backlog with food packs and even gift certificates. Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio said the final strategy and form would be ironed out soon, and the rollout of the strategy would be done in pilot areas.
She said the backlog continued to mount each month with vaccinations going on almost daily. Feedback from the communities coming from the barangay health workers said many of these unvaccinated residents in the priority list said the distance and the long queues in the vaccination areas have discouraged them.
“With many of them earning a living for their families, they would rather go to their workplaces than go to these places,” she said.
And there were residents who simply continued to refuse the vaccine.
Aside from incentivizing the vaccination, the city would continue with its mobile vaccination. She said vaccination areas would also be opened near the barangays where these unvaccinated individuals are concentrated.
The city has an estimated population of 1.8 million, of which the city government has targeted to inoculate 1.2 million to achieve herd immunity or protection. As of September 27, the city has vaccinated 716,793 on their first dose, and 583,002 on their second dose.
“The task force on Covid-19 is looking at two areas to pilot these vaccination centers, both to bring the centers closer to them, and to pilot the giving of incentives,” she said.
Mayor Sara said continuing infection have shown strong evidence of morbidity among the unvaccinated sector. In two weeks from late August to early September. There was a week, August 29 to September 4, which showed 42 of the 46 who died were unvaccinated.
This trend has been repeating weekly, and on September 19 to 25, of the 85 deaths, 78 were not vaccinated. Of the active cases reaching 2,431, some 2,107 were not vaccinated, she added.
However, the city mayor has issued Executive Order 45-A mandating city government personnel to get their vaccination on or before November 30 this year, “failure of which would be meted with sanctions.”
The EO warned plantilla personnel who refuses to undergo vaccination “shall be held administratively for insubordination and shall be penalized with a one month and one-day suspension to six months for the first offense.”
A second offense would mean dismissal from the service, which the EO cited Section 50 (d) of the 2017 Rules on Administrative Cases in the Civil Service (2018 RACCS).
The city information office said the EO provided exemption from the mandatory Covid-19 vaccination to those who, for medical reasons, have contraindications to available vaccines to the person’s comorbidity. It said the vaccine cluster of the Davao Covid-19 Task Force would endorse the exemption to the Human Resource Management Office.