DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 20 October) – The City Government of Davao is planning to establish a drive-thru vaccination site at the People’s Park here in a bid to speed up its COVID-19 immunization drive and reach “herd immunity” by November 30.
Dr. Michelle Schlosser, spokesperson of the Davao City COVID-19 Task Force, said during the “COVID-19 Alert” program over the Davao City Disaster Radio (DCDR 87.5) on Wednesday that local officials are finalizing the plan for the implementation of the drive-thru vaccination.
She noted the drive-thru vaccination, which the city government hopes to operationalize this week, will be open to all Dabawenyos who are willing to get vaccinated.
“Concrete plan has yet to be finalized. We are still in the process of planning. We’re trying to beat the (Nov. 30 herd immunity) deadline, and among the measures that we see will help us achieve this are the drive-thru vaccination and keeping our vaccination sites open on Saturdays,” she added.
As of October 18, the City Government of Davao reported 836,662 individuals who have received the first dose while 719,140 or 59.923% of the target 1.2 million are fully vaccinated.
Aside from the drive-thru vaccination, she said the city plans to start door-to-door vaccination to look for the remaining persons belonging to priority list A2 or senior citizens and priority list A3 or persons with comorbidities in the communities who are not yet vaccinated against the disease.
She said that officials are just completing the list before starting the door-to-door vaccination rollout.
Schlosser said the city would enlist senior citizen organizations, barangay officials, Barangay Health Emergency Response Teams and purok leaders to locate the unvaccinated members of the priority list A2 and A3 in the communities.
She urged the public to get vaccinated to reach the target herd immunity by the end of November.
So far, the Department of Health-Davao reported a total of 52,486 COVID-19 cases in the city, with 3,534 active, 47,294 recovered and 1,658 dead.
Under Resolution 144-D issued on October 18 by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Davao City has been placed under Alert Level 3, along with Davao del Norte, until October 31.
According to the resolution, Alert Level 3 refers to areas wherein case counts are high and/or increasing, with the total bed utilization rate and intensive care unit utilization rate going uptrend.
Davao de Oro, Davao del Sur and Davao Oriental are under Alert Level 2 and Davao Occidental is under Alert Level 4. (Antonio L. Colina IV/ MindaNews)