Mayor Lazatin expands vaccine access among Angeleños

ANGELES CITY Mayor Carmelo Pogi Lazatin Jr. announced a series of steps to expand vaccine access among Angelenos including extending hours from 8:00 a.m.to 7:00 p.m. at the main vaccination site — the City College of Angeles (CCA).

“A good and effective vaccine roll out will allow businesses to open up and create jobs in the process. While a slow vaccine roll out will shut down businesses and people will be rendered jobless. We can end this pandemic, restore public health, and rebuild our economy, but only if we can put vaccines within reach of every Angeleno,” said Lazatin. “With expanded hours and growing eligibility, we are doing everything we can to reach our constituents who have yet to get vaccinated and make it as easy and safe as possible to serve them.”

EXPANDED SCHEDULE
To get the vaccines into more arms, the city government intensifies its combined house-to-house surveys and online pre-registration (hsfcv.angelescitygov.ph), for those who wish to plan ahead can go online to sign up. It has also piloted evening hours after an increase in demand for evening vaccinations over the past weeks, hours were extended until 7:00 p.m.

Lazatin also announced that aside from the CCA, which operates from Monday to Sunday, the Angeles City High School-Pampang has also been designated an alternate vax site to house more eligible vaccinees. Initially, these sites will have the capacity to administer roughly 5,000 doses to Angelenos per day. “After more than a year of uncertainty, the vaccine has arrived and has clear benefits that should make everyone strongly consider getting the shot. By choosing to be vaccinated, you can protect not only yourself and your family but your community as well,” Lazatin stressed.

Lazatin frequently visits the CCA every week to closely monitor the vaccination process and boost the morale of the city’s healthcare workers and other frontliners.

MOBILE VACCINE CLINIC
Chief Adviser and Tactician IC Calaguas said, “In a few months, a mobile outreach for vaccine equity (MOVE) clinic will be available to encompass the entire city particularly remote villages with no access to public transportation, people in need of the shots who can’t make it to our vaccination site in person. We can go to the farms so that workers can be vaccinated at their job sites. That’s how accessible or mobile clinics are so important since essential workers often go weeks without taking days off. They have not stopped working one day during the whole pandemic. Many of them agricultural workers, many of them in construction, many of them in supermarkets. So they are most at risk. Equity remains a key focus of the city’s vaccination program. The MOVE clinic can deliver doses directly to communities most impacted by the pandemic.”

Calaguas is also taking into consideration to develop a handbook or manual based on the COVID-19 experience to provide guidance, collection of instructions and useful information as ready reference for crisis management and survival.

BUILDING VACCINE TRUST AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
Executive Assistant IV Reina Manuel explained that the Lazatin administration is exhausting its efforts in building vaccine trust and managing the crisis by cushioning the impacts of online learning for students and teachers and assisting small and medium-sized enterprises amid the worldwide pandemic. “In due time, we are “vax to normal”.The vaccine is the final step in our effort to get back to a more normal way of life. Public health measures such as mask wearing, physical distancing and hand-washing were implemented to slow the spread of the virus, and they have proven to work. We should continue with these precautions until enough people are immunized, especially the most vulnerable in our community.”

VACCINATION SCHEDULE
Angeleños should have received notifications with their appointment details by text and/or call before proceeding to the city vax centers. Patients should note that the date stamped on the vaccination cards received after their first dose is not an appointment confirmation. Instead, everyone should wait for the second dose appointment details to be provided by the Angeles City government by text and/or call.

Meanwhile, Angeles City Health Officer Dr. Verona Guevarra, in coordination with Gender and Development Officer (GAD) Mina Cabiles are conducting a community-based immunization of Human Papillomaviruses (HPV) Vaccines to all female Angeleños, aged 9-14 years old. HPV is a group of more than 200 related viruses, which can cause genital warts and certain types of cancer (cervical, anal, oropharyngeal, penile, vulvar, and vaginal).