The City Council, during last Monday’s regular session, urged all the city’s 128 barangays to make an inventory of their unvaccinated residents and to politely request them to take their vaccination shots to help in further improving the vaccination rate of the city government.
In a resolution, local legislators stated that the presence of unvaccinated individuals stems from a number of valid reasons such as, but not limited to, religious reasons, by reasons of age, either too old to too young, because their personal physicians have disallowed them to be inoculated on account of their health condition, and also invalid reasons such as procrastination, unwillingness to fall in line, or trypanophobia, fear of hypodermic needles, among other reasons.
The council asserted that despite these reasons, the local government has to try its best, through any means necessary to reach out to them, for the sake of the survival of the nation from the ongoing Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID19) pandemic.
The body stipulated that in order for the city’s unvaccinated constituents to be spared from unwarranted restraints and possible arrest, and to give them the liberty to still do essential activities even under heightened restrictions, such as going to the market, purchasing groceries, going to restaurants and malls, and other activities that vaccinated people are entitled to, it is necessary for the local government, through the barangays, to facilitate and ease up vaccination for the unvaccinated persons.
The barangays had been tapped to help speed up the identification of unvaccinated residents in their respective areas of jurisdiction to guide health authorities and local officials in the formulation of appropriate strategies that will convince them to already avail of the government’s mass vaccination program being rolled out for the realization of the desired population protection and herd immunity of the populace.
Moreover, barangay officials have been advised to inform and educate the unvaccinated individuals on the benefits of being vaccinated against the deadly virus to ensure that they will be protected from contracting the severe infection of the same.