Through the nation’s anticipation of the vaccine, Speaker Lord Allan Velasco has announced that the accredited media covering the House of Representatives and their families will be first in line in the chamber’s coronavirus vaccination campaign once the shots become available for mass use in the country.
For this reason, The House is setting aside P50 million from its internal fund to buy vaccines for its staff, media, and five of its immediate family members.
In view of this, The House will most likely acquire coronavirus vaccines from the British-Swedish manufacturer AstraZeneca or from Sinovac Biotech in China.
The upcoming coronavirus vaccination campaign will include media staff because the leadership of the House considers them family. They added that in the chamber’s vaccination campaign, House members would not be prioritized as they would have to wait behind employees and media staff.
In fact if the remaining doses are available, then that’s when they will use them for the members of the House. Meanwhile, The House Secretary General Mark Llandro Mendoza previously shared that the House is among the main priorities of Velasco to procure a coronavirus vaccine for members and staff of the House.
This eventh group that will be prioritized for the coronavirus vaccine, the government lists employees of national government agencies and local government units, following frontline health personnel, disadvantaged senior citizens, remaining senior citizens, remaining poor population, uniformed staff, and teachers and school workers.
The COVID-19 was contracted by 191 individuals in the chamber, including legislators and employees in accordance to their survey. Through the efforts of many firms, the Philippines has so far obtained 2.6 million doses of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, which is 70 percent effective on average, according to the British-Swedish drugmaker.
Even so, the country is also in negotiations with other drugmakers to buy candidates for the coronavirus vaccine.
