Makati City offers cash gift to vaccinated senior citizens

SOME 24,352 fully vaccinated senior citizens of Makati City do not only have significant levels of protection against Covid-19, they also received aP 1,000 gift certificate that the city government started distributing on July 5.

Mayor Abigail Binay said this is their way to show gratitude and appreciation for the support of their senior citizens to the city government’s Bakuna Makati campaign.

“This past month, there has been an uptick in the number of senior citizens that registered for Covid-19 vaccination under the A2 category. As of the end of July, we have registered around 50,000 senior citizens. Of these, 44,121 got their first dose of the vaccine, while 35,813 got their second dose,” Binay said.

She said the incentive was one of a number of strategic measures taken by the city to overcome vaccine hesitancy, especially among the elderly who are at high risk of suffering severe symptoms due to Covid-19. She pointed out some positive outcomes recently gained.

“Ideally, we should achieve 100percent vaccination rate among the elderly. However, it would still depend on their willingness to get vaccinated and on the availability of vaccines,” she added.

The mayor also reiterated the city’s commitment to the prioritization guidelines set by the Department of Health (DOH). “We have strictly followed the DOH protocols in allocating vaccines provided by the national government, and we intend to do the same with city-procured vaccines,” she said.

The initial batches of the 1 million vaccines purchased by the city are expected to arrive this month.

“These past months, we have been going out of our way to boost the registration rate of Bakuna Makati among target groups. we want to make sure we will have enough people to vaccinate every time we get a partial delivery on the 1 million doses we purchased, and every time we receive supplies from the national government,” she added.