Over 75 percent or more than 236,000 active tourism across the country are now vaccinated against coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the Department of Tourism (DOT) announced.
Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat expressed her satisfaction with the latest vaccine numbers and vowed to continue the Department’s inoculation efforts to help achieve a higher vaccination coverage soon.
“We will not stop until we achieve 100 percent vaccination for all our active tourism workers,” Puyat said.
“Our vaccination rollout for active tourism workers started since July 2021. Having achieved high vaccination rates in most of our destinations, we are focusing our efforts on the few remaining places with low inoculation numbers,” she added.
According to Puyat, the DOT’s vaccination program for tourism workers is part of the agency’s commitment on the directive of President Duterte to support the “Bayanihan, Bakunahan” three-day nationwide simultaneous inoculation drive from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1.
Metro Manila still had the highest vaccination coverage for tourism workers with 99.79 percent as of Nov. 19 based on DOT’s latest data.
This was followed by Region XI with 99.11 percent, Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) with 96.79 percent, Region III with 95.10 percent, and Region VIII with 90.55 percent.
The DOT’s inoculation efforts to support the “Bayanihan, Bakunahan” nationwide inoculation drive will focus its coverage on Region I with 67.21 percent vaccination rate, Region IV-A with 42.70 percent, and Region XIII with 30.43 percent.
"The DOT welcomes the higher vaccination rate among the various regions in the country--with key destination areas attaining 100 percent coverage already,” the DOT chief said.
“We thank the National Task Force Against COVID-19, most especially to Chief Implementer and Vaccine Czar, Secretary Carlito G. Galvez Jr. and Deputy Chief Implementer Secretary Vince Dizon, the Department of Health and our private stakeholders and local government units for the ceaseless support in protecting our tourism workforce—the backbone of our industry,” Puyat added.