The government has started its pilot rollout of COVID-19 vaccination—expected to last up to the end of the month—in selected pharmacies and clinics two days into the weekend, but vaccine recipients have been told to pre-register before arriving at participating drugstores.
This is only proper—to prevent crowding in pharmacies set to administer COVID-19 jabs to the public.
Pre-registration is required so that authorities can manage the flow of those showing up at drugstores and private clinics that are participating in this pilot implementation.
Dubbed “Resbakuna sa mga Botika,” testing czar Vince Dizon said the program would start with seven participating drugstores on Thursday and Friday, after authorities talked to Mercury Drug, Watsons, Rose Pharmacy, Southstar Drug, Generika, and other clinics like Healthway and QualiMed.
After the launch this week, authorities will expand it to other cities all over the country—Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao—and other pharmacies.
Malacañang said each of the initial seven participating drugstores would be provided with an initial 500 doses of COVID-19 vaccines per week, or a total of 3,500 doses.
Acting Presidential spokesman Karlo Nograles said that participating drugstores and clinics would be implementing this vaccination drive in coordination with local government units, with the responsibility of registration and documentation with the LGUs while pharmacies would oversee administration.
Nograles clarified that Resbakuna sa mga Botika would initially cater to recipients of booster shots only, giving assurances that the pilot implementation of the program would be adjusted accordingly.
“We will tweak and perfect it accordingly, depending on learnings we have while we are piloting the Bakuna sa Botika,” he added.
According to the Department of Health, fully vaccinated individuals are allowed to receive their booster shots at least three months after the second dose of a primary-two dose vaccine or at least two months after the primary single-dose vaccine is given.
AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer, Sinovac, and Sputnik are two-dose vaccines while Janssen is the sole single-dose vaccine currently approved for use in the country.
We encourage those still off the vaccination rollout to register and be counted.
