The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) has approved Priority Group A4 or the list of essential workers included in the national vaccination plan.
Based on the approved list, government and private frontline media workers, together with initially identified essential workers, are now next to be vaccinated.
Presidential Task Force on Media Security Undersecretary Joel Egco welcomed this development, but appealed for the inclusion of other media employees.
“Hindi lang dapat ‘yung crew at ‘yung reporter lang, kasi paano nga ‘yung mga nasa opisina na nag-eedit, kailangan protected din sila. Otherwise, wala ring silbi ‘yung pag-cover natin [It should not only include the crew and reporters, because there are also those in the offices who edit, who need protection. Otherwise, the vaccine coverage is useless],” Egco said.
Communications Secretary Martin Andanar also thanked the IATF for including on the A4 list frontline media workers “who have worked tirelessly and have risked their lives to fulfill their duties.”
“Their indispensable and invaluable contributions have provided us with important and life-saving information on all matters relative to the contagion and the responses of the Duterte administration,” he said.
Meanwhile, the National Press Club is now preparing their list of vaccine recipients, saying that they “have over 820 regular and lifetime members qualified and waiting to be vaccinated.”
The Department of Health (DOH) said essential workers or those in the A4 list can get vaccinated in May at the earliest.
“Ang sinasabi naman po kasi nina Secretary Galvez, as soon as the stocks of vaccines will come in na regular na, stable ang ating supplies, magsi-simultaneous na rin tayo hanggang A4 of our population [What Sec. Galvez is saying, is that as soon as the stocks of vaccines come in regularly, we can do the simultaneous vaccination up to the A4 group],” DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said.
The following are the workers included in the A4 list:
Commuter transport (land, air, and sea), including logistics;
Public and private wet and dry market vendors;
Frontline workers in groceries, supermarkets, delivery services;
Workers in manufacturing for food, beverage, medical and pharmaceutical products;
Frontline workers in food retail, including food service delivery;
Frontline workers in private and government financial services;
Frontline workers in hotels and accommodation establishments;
Priests, rabbis, imams, and other religious leaders;
Security guards/ personnel assigned in offices, agencies, and organizations identified in the list of priority industries/sectors;
Frontline workers in private and government news media;
Customer-facing personnel of telecoms, cable and internet service providers, electricity distribution and water distribution utilities;
Frontline personnel in basic education and higher education institutions and agencies;
Overseas Filipino workers, including those scheduled for deployment within two months;
Frontline workers in law/justice, security, and social protection sectors;
Frontline government workers engaged in the operations of government transport systems, quarantine inspection;
Worker safety inspection and other COVID-19 response activities;
Frontline government workers in charge of tax collection, assessment of businesses for incentives, election, national ID, data collection personnel;
Diplomatic community and Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) personnel in consular operations;
Department of Public Works and Highways personnel in charge of monitoring government infrastructure projects.
Report from Mark Fetalco/AG-jlo
