The city of San Juan will officially start its house-to-house COVID-19 info drive and vaccine registration on Tuesday (February 9) at the barangay hall of barangay Isabelita, San Juan City Mayor Francisco Zamora announced late Monday afternoon.
The said program is the city's move to lessen the residents' fear and apprehensions in the safety and efficacy of the vaccines against COVID-19. It also aims to urge other residents to be inoculated against the virus.
“We will not force our constituents to get vaccinated, but we will do everything we can to keep them informed about and educated on the COVID-19 vaccine and encourage them to get inoculated because the vaccines approved by the FDA are safe and effective,” Zamora said.
“We have been doing information dissemination in different ways, and this is just another way to get our message across. Not everyone has social media or get to read the news or watch TV to know about the vaccine,” he added.
The initiative will include the distribution of leaflets containing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about the vaccines, a seminar about the city’s vaccination plan including the vaccines procured, and a talk to the people where concerns about the safety of the vaccines will be answered and clarified.
The city government will also set up an on-the-spot vaccination registration station for people who have no access to the internet, hence cannot register online for the city's inoculation drive.
“We want to do house-to-house visits to make sure everyone is informed, educated and given access to the online registration. We are exerting all efforts to increase the number of vaccine registrants which will eventually help us achieve a COVID-19 free San Juan,” Zamora said.
The city government will then set up a virtual town hall meeting with Dr. Silverose Ann Bacolcol from the Infectious Diseases Unit of San Juan Medical Center and Dr. Paul Salandanan from the Adult Infectious Diseases of Cardinal Santos Medical Center to talk about the COVID-19 vaccine’s safety and efficacy.
The town hall meeting will be broadcasted live at 1:00 p.m. on Mayor Zamora's official Facebook page.
Zamora added that the city will also conduct a simulation of the city’s COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout Plan at 3:00 p.m. at the San Juan Arena.
As of February 8, there were 18,427 total registrants for the COVID-19 Vaccination Registration since its launch last January 4.