Malacanang announced that some 5,000 COVID-19 jabs will be given to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and minimum wage workers under the A4 priority group on May 1, Labor Day.
The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) has approved the request of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to use the shots in a symbolic inoculation ceremony on May 1.
“The DOLE has been directed to create a master list to ensure the equitable representation of the labor sector during the said ceremony,” Malacanang said.
The IATF is also considering adding frontliners in Congress into the A4 group due to their critical and dispensable role in our fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Under the A4 group, transportation workers, market vendors, religious leaders, OFWs, and members of the media are prioritized for the vaccination.
They are next in line after medical frontliners, senior citizens and persons with comorbidities. The country logged 7,204 new COVID-19 cases a day after the country’s total went past the 1 million mark, the health department announced on Tuesday.
The new cases bring the overall tally to 1,013,618 confirmed coronavirus cases. Some 71,765 cases on the other hand are considered active.
The DOH said that the relatively low number of new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday is due to the failure of 22 testing laboratories to submit data last Sunday. Around 63 more COVID-related fatalities were recorded, bringing the death toll to 10,916.
Recoveries, meanwhile, increased by 10,109 bringing the total to 925,027.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque urged everyone to look at the grim milestone of 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases in a different angle and lens.
Duque said that a million COVID-19 cases in the country would also mean a million recoveries from the disease.
