More than 24,000 fully vaccinated senior citizens in Makati City have received P1,000 gift certificates from the city government, Mayor Abigail “Abby” Binay said on Tuesday (August 3).

The Makati City local government provided such an incentive to entice more senior citizens to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

The city government began the distribution of the P1,000 gift certificates on July 5. So far, a total of 24,352 senior citizens received their gift certificates.

The incentive was one of the measures taken by the city to overcome vaccine hesitancy, especially among the senior citizens who are at high risk of suffering severe symptoms due to COVID-19, the mayor said.

“This past month, there has been an uptick in the number of senior citizens that registered for COVID-19 vaccination under the A2 category. As of the end of July, we have registered around 50,000 senior citizens. Of these, 44,121 got their first dose of the vaccine, while 35,813 got their second dose,” the mayor said.

“Ideally, we should achieve a 100 percent vaccination rate among the elderly. However, it would still depend on their willingness to get vaccinated and on the availability of vaccines,” she added.

According to the mayor, the initial batches of the one million vaccines purchased by the city are expected to arrive this month.

“These past months, we have been going out of our way to boost the registration rate of Bakuna Makati among target groups. We want to make sure we will have enough people to vaccinate every time we get a partial delivery on the one million doses we purchased, and receive supplies from the national government,” she said.

Binay noted that at two doses per individual, the city-procured vaccines will cover 500,000 Makatizens, both residents and transient workers.

Makati City needs to inoculate about 430,000 individuals or 70 percent of the city’s estimated population to achieve herd immunity.