ANINI-Y, Antique – Beginning Jan. 6, the municipal government here required employees in the public and private sectors physically reporting to work to have themselves vaccinated against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Mayor Maxfil Pollicar’s Executive Order No. 1, Series of 2022 adopted the national Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) Resolution No. 148-B, Series of 2021 stating that: “In areas where there are sufficient supplies of COVID-19 vaccines as determined by the National Vaccines Operation Center (NVOC), all establishments and employees in the public and private sectors shall require their eligible employees who are tasked to do on-site work to be vaccinated against COVID-19.”
The resolution added: “Eligible employees who remain to be unvaccinated may not be terminated solely by reason thereof. However, they shall be required to undergo (reverse transcription – polymerase chain reaction) tests regularly at their own expense for purposes of on-site work. Provided that, antigen tests may be resorted to when RT-PCR capacity is insufficient or not immediately available.”
According to Pollicar, “the continued implementation of proactive measures and restrictions must be put in place to slow down the surge in COVID-19 cases, stop further spread of variants, buy time for the health system to cope, and to protect more lives.”
As of Jan. 5, 10,193 residents of Anini-y were already fully vaccinated against COVID-19 while 1,618 more were waiting for their second dose to be deemed fully vaccinated as well.
The local government of Anini-y targets to vaccinate 15,753 individuals./PN