More than 50,000 provincial residents vaccinated in city

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

The Iloilo City Government on Friday said many residents from all of Iloilo province’s 42 municipalities and 1 component city received coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines in the city.

In a press release, the city government said it was able to vaccinate 55,436 non-residents from various municipalities in the province.

Many of them were from the Metro Iloilo towns of Leganes, Oton, Pavia, San Miguel, and Santa Barbara.

The city government was unable to provide a breakdown of the numbers per town, as well as a breakdown of whether they were fully vaccinated or partially vaccinated.

The revelation of these figures stemmed from a letter by Iloilo Governor Arthur Defensor Jr. to Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas requesting the number of individuals vaccinated by the City Government but are residents of municipalities outside the city.

On Thursday, provincial health officer Socorro Quiñon told media that they were worried about the tagging of vaccinated provincial residents to Iloilo City’s accomplishments.

In his reply, Treñas told Defensor that the city was more than willing to vaccinate its fellow Ilonggo neighbors.

“It is a pleasure to include residents from the province in our vaccination operations as we aim to extend all the support we could to our fellow Ilonggos and together Heal as One,” Treñas said in his reply letter.

“We want to give protection to everyone as the virus is still here. This is our way of helping other local government units that may not have enough supply of vaccines until now,” the mayor also said in a press release.

The Iloilo City government has been vaccinating non-resident workers from outside the city, and even held open vaccinations for those from outside of the city within Panay Island.

The city aims to fully vaccinate 525,000 individuals – 425,000 from the city’s projected population and 100,000 workers from Iloilo province and beyond.

Department of Health-Western Visayas Center for Health Development (DOH-WV CHD) data as of 5 a.m. of Nov. 12 indicated that the city has 319,158 fully vaccinated individuals, or 95.22 percent of the national government’s local vaccination target (335,172).

Meanwhile, Iloilo province has 430,636 fully vaccinated individuals, or 29.72 percent of the 1.4-million national government target.

The figure, however, does not include the 55,436 provincial residents vaccinated in Iloilo City.