The Department of Health (DOH) said that COVID-19 vaccination will still continue in the Greater Manila area despite being placed under the strictest quarantine level.
Metro Manila and its surrounding provinces Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal will be put under the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) starting Monday, March 29 until Sunday, April 4 as announced by Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque on Saturday, March 27.
The DOH previously said that most of the new cases were being detected in these areas.
“Tuloy na tuloy po ang vaccination kahit po mag quarantine po tayo (Vaccination will continue even if we are under quarantine),” said DOH Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje in a radio interview on Sunday, March 28.
Meanwhile, Cabotaje said that majority of the 400,000 doses of Sinovac vaccines that arrived in the Philippines last March 24 will be distributed to areas under ECQ. This is to immediately protect the healthcare workers in those areas, she said.
“Naka deploy na ang karamihan....Nagdecide dahil hotspot ngayon ang NCR plus bubble, medyo ico-concentrate natin yung pagbabakuna dito (Most have already been deployed .... It was decided that since the NCR plus bubble is now a hotspot, we will concentrate the vaccination here),” said Cabotaje.
“So ang ginawa natin nagre-allocate tayo, 75 percent ng 400,000 of the vaccines pupunta sa NCR, Bulacan, tapos yung Region 4a: yung ating mga nasa bubble: Laguna, Cavite, Rizal (So what we did is we reallocate the 75 percent of the 400,000 vaccines to NCR, Bulacan, then Region 4a: those included in the bubble: Laguna, Cavite, Rizal),” she added.
Moreover, the 75 percent of the one million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines that are expected to arrive in the country within this month will also be given to NCR-plus bubble, said Cabotaje.
“Yung one million din nirekomend ng IATF at approved ng Presidente...na 75 percent din maiiwan pa din sa NCR plus bubble para naman may proteksyon kahit konti ang ating healthcare workers at ating mga mamamayan [Out of the 1 million doses of (COVID-19 vaccines), the President approved the recommendation of the IATF that the 75 percent will be distributed in the NCR-plus bubble to give protection to healthcare workers and citizens),” she said.
Meanwhile, the 1,125,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines that first arrived in the country were already distributed in the different vaccination sites nationwide, said Cabotaje.