The Philippine National Police (PNP) is nearing the completion of its target to fully vaccinate all its personnel against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), saying the latest data is that 92 percent of policemen and civilian employees were either fully-vaccinated or already received the first dose.
Quoting its vaccination roll-out data, PNP chief Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar said that 45.46 percent of PNP personnel, translated to 101,302, have been fully vaccinated as of Thursday, September 2.
A total of 103,276 policemen and civilian employees, or 46.43 percent of the entire PNP personnel, already received the first dose and are now just waiting for the schedule of their second dose.
“Right now, there are only 8.2 percent, or 18,279 policemen and non-uniformed personnel who are waiting for their turn to have the first dose,” said Eleazar.
The PNP started its vaccination roll-out in March this year. But the police organization still followed the vaccination protocol—starting with its own medical frontliners and healthcare workers, those with comorbidity and senior citizen civilian employees.
Most of the PNP personnel, including Eleazar and other top ranking police officials, were vaccinated with Sinovac. Some were vaccinated with AstraZeneca, Pfizer and other COVID-19 vaccine brands.
Amid doubts on vaccination, Eleazar, then head of the PNP Administrative Support for COVID-19 Task Force, initiated a survey to determine the number of PNP personnel who wanted to be vaccinated. The first result revealed that only 49 percent of PNP personnel wanted to be vaccinated.
A series of aggressive information dissemination was conducted which convinced almost all policemen and civilian employees to be vaccinated.