After nearly 2 weeks of implementing the plan to inject the 2nd dose of booster vaccines against COVID-19 for children aged 12-17 and the 3rd dose for people aged 18 and above, in the spirit of the province's direction to quickly administer the vaccination and ensure that those who need vaccination, especially workers and temporary residents are not missed out, localities have had proactive and creative ways to basically complete vaccination for the people.
Medical forces in Phu Cuong ward of Thu Dau Mot city go to the homes of people who cannot move to administer COVID-19 vaccines. Photo: Hong Thuan
People who need vaccination are not missed out
As a remote area with ethnic minorities, many people mostly go to work during the day, even on weekends, many people still work hard in the fields and rubber plantation unable to get vaccinated, the implementation of vaccination in Phu Giao district encountered certain difficulties. However, overcoming the difficulties, the vaccination implementation of Phu Giao is still guaranteed according to the plan.
Ms. Tran Hong Dung, Deputy Chairwoman of Phu Giao district People's Committee, said that the plan to implement the 2nd dose vaccination for children aged 12-17 and the 3rd booster dose for people aged 18 years and above until March 20, 2020, the district has basically completed the injection schedule and the set out target, ensuring that people who need vaccination are not missed out, especially in remote communes. The political system from the district to the grassroots has focused on both mobilizing and propagating people to participate in the 3rd dose vaccination under the general direction of the province, and at the same time, mobilizing the local forces to implement the public policy for rapid vaccination on the people. The communes and towns have done well to review each injected object, making a specific list of each type of object. Mobile injection teams, then, go to those people who cannot afford to go to the fixed vaccination sites, especially the elderly, weak and sick, people in remote areas. As a result, in the round, the district has basically completed the vaccination plan with 81,835 injections on 10,703 people aged 12-17 of 2nd dose and 71,132 people the 3rd booster doses.
Meanwhile, Ms. Tran Thi Thao, Deputy Chairwoman of the People's Committee of Ben Cat town, said that in implementing the rapid vaccination plan, Ben Cat town had also encountered some drawbacks such as the case that after Tet, a part of laborers returned to their hometown had not returned to the locality and rapid mechanical population changing rate. Along with that, a part of people did not have enough time to get the 3rd vaccination due to the delay and time to quarantine and treat COVID-19. Some people even have been subjective on having had 2 doses of the vaccines or think that they are still safe with the vaccines, so they do not want to get vaccinated.
“Identifying the drawbacks and with great determination, the town mobilizes the active participation of the whole political system including at least 50% of the force of cadres, civil servants, mass organizations of communes and wards, self-governing people's groups, neighborhoods, hamlets, community Covid groups, and the whole society in vaccination work and vaccination data input into the system. These forces also review, make statistics and update local subjects who have been vaccinated and have not been vaccinated against COVID-19. At the same time, they strengthen the propaganda and mobilization of officials, Party members, people and businesses in the area to be aware of the meaning, role and importance of vaccination to participate in vaccination," said Thao.
Reviews to be made for supplementing 3rd dose vaccination on working people
According to the provincial Management Board of Industrial Parks, on the basis of registering the need for vaccination at 227 enterprises in industrial parks, units and localities have organized the 3rd dose booster injection for nearly 11,000 workers and 3,266 people registered for the 2nd dose injection. Up to now, the number of workers who need to inject at enterprises has been organized by the local health centers and the injection schedule has been basically completed. Localities with a large number of workers like Di An city and Thuan An city also organized fixed injection sites and mobile injection teams to offer injections at night, creating favorable conditions for residents and workers working outside industrial parks to be vaccinated.
Talking to reporters, Mr. Pham Van Bay, Deputy Chairman of the People's Committee of Di An city, said that the locality had also completed the vaccination target as planned. Accumulated up to now, the city has offered 942,988 injections, 344,109 of which were the 2nd dose, and 221,628 the 3rd dose. The city has imported 85.4% of the data of 804,753 injections and vaccinated people. Currently, the city forces are keeping on to input data for 138,235 injections that have just been injected in this batch.
Meanwhile, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hien, Deputy Chairwoman of Thuan An city People's Committee, said the city has also basically completed the target of 2nd dose injection for children aged 12-17 with 5,677 subjects and booster injection for 216,528 subjects of 18 years of age and older. However, the local population fluctuates much and quickly, so it has faced many difficulties in strictly managing the population, leading to difficulty in capturing and reviewing the number of subjects who received the 3rd dose injection in other localities. Some people still think that there is no need to get the 3rd dose once they have gone to work or are still infected. In addition, some companies are worried about affecting production, so they hesitate to register for the 3rd dose injection. These are the difficulties that the locality will continue to focus on solving in the near future to increase the vaccine coverage.
Currently, in order to ensure that people of vaccination age need not be missed out, the provincial Center for Disease Control is coordinating with localities to review people in the age groups who have not received the 2nd and 3rd shots to continue deploying vaccination until the end of March 31.
Reported by Minh Duy – Translated by Vi Bao
