The Pateros municipal government has launched an express registration through texting for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination to encourage more people to sign up.
Pateros Mayor Miguel Ponce III announced the additional method to register for the municipality’s vaccination program as he noted that many are still not vaccinated under the A2 (senior citizens) and A3 (persons with comorbidities) priority groups.
Under the express registration, people only need to text their personal information to 0949-623-5555.
For A1, or health workers, they only need to text their name, date of birth, address, type of profession, company name and cell phone number.
Senior citizens (A2) only need to send the name, date of birth, address and cell phone number and persons with comorbidities need to text their name, date of birth, address, type of comorbidity, and cell phone number.
For A4, or essential workers, they should text their name, date of birth, address, type of work, name of company and place where they work, and cell phone number.
Others who are at least 18 years old and not classified under A1 to A4 are encouraged to text their name, date of birth, address, and cell phone number.
Registrants will receive text messages from the municipal government on the date and time of their vaccination.
The municipal government has started vaccinating those under the A4 category and, according to the mayor, these include workers who go out of their homes and those who work from home.
There are four vaccination centers in Pateros: the AMC Gym, Pateros Catholic School Annex and Main, and Villa Monica Clubhouse. He apologized to the public as these sites have experienced a slowdown in vaccination due to the simultaneous inoculation for the first and second doses of the vaccine.
Ponce said the municipal government can no longer open additional vaccination sites owing to the lack of health workers.
“We only have four doctors and I thank the Department of Health for providing three more doctors as augmentation to our existing health workers,” he said.
The mayor said recently, he reached an agreement with the dental association of Taguig, Pateros and Pasig to help in the vaccination.
Ponce earlier said that the municipal government is targeting to vaccinate 49,000, or 70 percent, of the estimated 70,000 population of Pateros.
As of June 9, Pateros has 4,523 confirmed COVID-19 cases including 4,328 recoveries and 63 deaths, leaving 132 active cases.