San Miguel Corporation (SMC) reported that its “Ligtas Lahat” vaccination program has already resulted in the administration of almost 180,000 vaccines doses in five cities of Metro Manila.
In a statement, the firm said its vaccination program switched to high-gear with the deployment to more cities of more medical professionals it hired to augment government medical teams administering vaccines at various vaccination sites.
From April 26 to June 22, over 100 SMC medical doctors and nurses have helped administer an estimated 179,644 vaccines in Mandaluyong, Malabon, Manila, Paranaque, and Quezon City.
SMC expects its number of medical workers deployed to reach about 200 in a few weeks.
SMC has also partnered with local government units (LGUs) to start vaccinating its A4 employees while waiting for its own vaccines to arrive.
To date, 3,521 of its own front line and essential workers have been vaccinated at three vaccination sites the company has opened.
“Even if the vaccines we ordered have yet to arrive, we are all systems go when it comes to vaccination efforts. Our ‘SMC Ligtas Lahat’ task force teams are working full-time to do whatever we can to support our Metro Manila local governments as they implement their vaccination programs,” said SMC Rresident Ramon S. Ang.
He added that, “We’re hiring more medical personnel and deploying them to city vaccination sites, and at the same time providing the facilities to enable our LGUs to vaccinate as many of our A4 workers.”
Ang noted that, “This is the best way we can help achieve herd immunity, get our economy going, get people working and earning safely again, and ultimately, protect more Filipinos from strains of the COVID-19 virus.”
Since June 3, SMC has also been jointly managing, together with the Mandaluyong LGU, a vaccination site at Jose Rizal University (JRU) in its home city. The site, manned by 20 nurses and 10 doctors from SMC, vaccinates some 1,000 individuals per day.
Ang said that even before its own supply of Moderna and Astra Zeneca vaccines-- ordered under a P1 billion program to vaccinate some 70,000 in its workforce and their families--start arriving next month, SMC has already implemented programs to educate its employees about vaccines, and enable them to get these through partnerships with LGUs.
The number of San Miguel employees that have been fully vaccinated or at least given their first shot, according to Ang, could be higher than the 3,521 A4 workers.
This is because the number does not include those who, along with their families, got their jabs as A2 (senior citizens) and A3 (persons with comorbidities) at their areas of residence.