Taguig City is eying to initially inoculate 670k residents —mayor

The local government of Taguig City is aiming to initially vaccinate at least 670,000 residents for its vaccine program against COVID-19, Mayor Lino Cayetano said Wednesday.

During the CODE Team Visit to the city's vaccination hub, Cayetano explained that the city has a total population of 1,029,127; but at present, only 670,000 are eligible for vaccination due to age consideration.

"Ang computation ho namin nasa 670,000 'yung above 16-years-old. Sa ngayon ho kasi 'yung bakuna na available sa merkado, 16 and above or 18 and above 'yung puwede. Pero we are assured naman by the experts na 'yung 18 and below, pinag-aaralan ngayon paano sila mababakunahan," the mayor said.

"So, ang target ho natin ngayon, around 670,000. The first batch will help us prepare for the next batch of vaccination..." he added.

Also, the mayor mentioned that there are 716 doctors, nurses and public health workers who have been trained to be vaccinators, adding that 62 doctors and nurses of the city were given skills on cold storage management.

Further, he said there would be at least 400 special teams with five members each who will administer vaccines in at least 40 vaccination centers.

Forty schools and four mega quarantine facilities will serve as vaccination centers once the inoculation program starts, he said earlier.

Taguig City earlier signed an agreement with Orca Cold Chain Solutions Inc. for the use of its facility in Barangay Bagumbayan as storage for COVID-19 vaccines.

The city was among the localities that entered into a tripartite agreement with AstraZeneca and the national government regarding its procurement of vaccines.

So far, Taguig City has 71 active COVID-19 cases.

As of January 25, the city already conducted a total of 109,329 RT-PCR tests, which represents 11.07% of the local population.

"We will remain aggressive, that is our pledge... we will remain aggressive in our testing and in our central business district, we also pledge to test all our employees, kahit hindi ho taga-Taguig," Cayetano said. —LBG, GMA News