700 PNP medical personnel join first batch for COVID-19 jab

By Jimmyley E. Guzman

PASIG CITY, Feb. 19 (PIA) — At least 700 medical personnel of the Philippine National Police (PNP) will comprise the first batch of COVID-19 recipients once the national vaccine rollout begins, a senior official said. 

PNP Deputy Chief for Administration, Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar said some of the recipients are police frontline workers assigned at the PNP General Hospital inside Camp Crame in Quezon City.

“Since the personnel of the PNP General Hospital will be accommodated and that is the initial advice given to us, we are prepared to provide the necessary names of personnel if we will be given additional contacts for the vaccination and we have our own priority list of those in the front-lines aside from the personnel assigned with the General Hospital,” Eleazar said in a recent press briefing at Camp Crame in Quezon City.

Likewise, he said others included in the first batch are police officers tasked to secure the COVID-19 vaccines during its nationwide rollout.

Eleazar said the initial batch of PNP personnel will be given the required two doses of the COVID-19 vaccines.

The official identified the National Capital Region (NCR), Region 7 (Central Visayas), Region 4-A (Calabarzon), and Region 3 (Central Luzon) are among the four regions that will be prioritized in the government’s COVID-19 vaccination program.

These four regions were prioritized based on the infection positivity rate as revealed in the data of the Department of Health (DOH) since March 15, 2020.

The second in the priority areas, meanwhile, are highly-urbanized cities with high COVID-19 cases including Baguio City, Iloilo City, Cebu City, Bacolod City, and Davao City.

The third priority, on the other hand, are cities and municipalities with moderate cases of coronavirus disease, while the fourth and last priority are classified as all other areas with low positivity rate. (PIA NCR)