San Juan starts vax drive for non-residents

MANILA, Philippines — San Juan City started vaccinating people from other territories within and outside Metro Manila yesterday, with registrants expected to fly in from as far as Bacolod City.

Mayor Francis Zamora said the city government received an initial 5,000 registrants, whom it intends to inoculate before the week ends.

“Now that we’ve started, we expect more people to register,” Zamora told reporters.

This effort came after the Metro Manila Council decided to vaccinate as one, especially those cities that have finished inoculating target residents in their respective jurisdictions, among them San Juan.

To ensure that only qualified individuals will get vaccinated, registrants’ names will be cross-checked by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to determine if they are indeed unvaccinated.

Zamora said the DICT was able to flag at least 200 names registered in San Juan but have already been fully vaccinated in their respective cities.