LINGAYEN, Pangasinan – Some 2,967 police personnel in the province of Pangasinan have been inoculated with coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) vaccines, according to the Pangasinan Police Provincial Office (PPPO).
In an interview on Tuesday, PPPO information officer Maj. Arturo Melchor Jr. said out of the total number, 1,685 received the first dose of the vaccine while 1,140 were fully vaccinated.
“Some of us were accommodated by the local government units, while some were immunized through the PPPO while still others through the provincial government of Pangasinan depending on the availability of the supply of vaccines,” he said.
There are now only a few that were not yet vaccinated, he added.
As of August 10, there are 35 active Covid-19 cases involving other police personnel.
“They are in (an) isolation facility of PPPO but they are all asymptomatic (not showing any symptoms),” Melchor said.
The Pangasinan Provincial Board has approved a resolution urging the National Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) to consider as a priority the Philippine National Police personnel in the Covid-19 vaccination rollout.
“Law enforcement front-liners are at high risk of exposure since they are dealing with a lot of people during their call of duty. Prioritizing the uniformed personnel would lessen their mortality and morbidity rate during this period of public health crisis especially now that local cases of the Covid-19 Delta variant have already been detected in some parts of the country,” said Resolution no. 2635 approved by the board members during their virtual session on Monday.
It said frontline health workers, senior citizens, persons with comorbidities, and others that are listed on the top list have already been vaccinated.
Frontline personnel in essential sectors, which include uniformed personnel, are added in the next category of the priority list of the Covid-19 vaccination program, it added.
“Covid-19 vaccination is a safer way to help build protection toward a severe infection for everybody, especially the PNP personnel front-liners who continue to enforce the government’s ongoing efforts to contain the further spread of the disease more so in the fight against the highly infectious Delta variant,” the resolution read. (PNA)
