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Why information dissemination on COVID vaccination is important
Why information dissemination on COVID vaccination is important
When top police officials decided to conduct a survey on who among the more than 219,000 policemen want to be vaccinated against the Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) three weeks ago, almost half of them replied that they do not want to.
The result of the survey, wherein 49 percent of policemen replied ‘No’ on a question ‘Do you want to be vaccinated against COVID-10’, served as the basis for the intervention of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to encourage its men to be inoculated, according to Lt. Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, Deputy Chief for Administration.
“Our target is to have at least 70 percent of the PNP personnel to agree to be vaccinated. Based on the result of that survey, we initiated information dissemination drive for our personnel nationwide,” said Eleazar who is also the commander of the PNP-Administrative Support for COVID-19 Task Force (ASCOTF).
“Some of our personnel are really hesitant to avail of the COVID-19 vaccine and we attribute it to the deluge of information that they would read or see especially in the social media. But as our health experts always say, vaccination far outweighs the potential risks and claims of danger,” he added.
Using an application exclusive to all PNP personnel which is called PNP CODA (COVID-19 Data), videos and fact sheets from the Department of Health and other scientists about the benefits of vaccination are regularly posted to educate both the uniformed and civilian personnel on how the vaccine works and its benefits amid the continuous threat of infection from the deadly virus.
From only 51 percent PNP personnel who want to be vaccinated during the first survey, Eleazar said the number went up to 63 percent after a week.
The additional 12 percent who changed their minds, according to Eleazar, translated to more than 26,000.
On Monday, Feb. 22, Eleazar disclosed during a press briefing at Camp Crame in Quezon City that the figure rose to 70.14 percent as of Monday morning, or before the press conference.
“We now have, 70.14 percent who want to be vaccinated. This means that we now have 153,696 personnel who are now willing to be vaccinated against the COVID-19,” Eleazar told reporters.
Eleazar attributed the sharp increase on those who changed their minds to the aggressive information dissemination campaign of the PNP using videos, information sheet and short discussions on why the vaccines are important. These are all posted in the PNP CODA.
Through the PNP-CODA, any PNP personnel could change their answer anytime. As such, the PNP monitors the result of the survey question almost every minute.
The information dissemination drive using the PNP-CODA platform is reinforced by discussions and ‘talk-to-troops’ initiatives of the PNP ASCOTF as instructed by PNP chief Gen. Debold Sinas.
“Right now, there are only 29.86 percent who are still hesitant to take the vaccine. This translates to 65,434 of our personnel,” said Eleazar.
“But we would like to emphasize that we are not forcing our personnel to take the vaccine. We respect their decision not to be vaccinated. On our part, we will just continue our effort to intensify our information dissemination on the benefits of COVID-19 vaccines,” he added.
And before the Monday press conference concluded, Eleazar said that additional 400 PNP personnel changed their mind and are now willing to be vaccinated.