Leaves the discretion to mayors
TACLOBAN CITY – Leyte Governor Leopoldo Dominico Petilla said that he is not keen on imposing the ‘no vaccination card – no entry’ or a ‘no vaccination card – no ride policy’ in the province.
However, he said that this policy could be enforced by the mayors in their respective areas.
“It has no effect. If you are vaccinated you are protected, you are protected from getting hospitalized,” Petilla said.
“Even when there is still no vaccine available, we allow them to enter establishments, and statistics shows that infection happens not in these establishments but inside the home,” the governor added.
Petilla further said that there is no need for the province to amend the provincial ordinance on policies that control the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the province.
The Leyte governor stressed that if the goal is to prevent the further spread of COVID-19, enforcing of the minimum health protocols such as the proper wearing of face masks, physical distancing, hand washing, and sanitizing must be strictly implemented and observed even at home.
He also said that the vaccination campaign must also be strengthened at the local level to allow more people to have access to COVID-19 vaccines.
Earlier, the Regional Inter-agency Task Force and the Regional Task Force for Emerging Diseases released a joint resolution urging local government units to craft a local law that will encourage more people to be vaccinated and for private establishments to adopt and enforce it.
This policy includes the no vaccination no entry policy which most establishments and local government units in the region and the rest of the country are now implementing.
Several local government units in the region are now imposing the no vax, no entry policy when doing transactions are government offices and in entering private establishments.
The provincial government of Samar, on the other hand, became the first province to enact an ordinance for the enforcement of the no vaccine, no entry policy.
Last month, Leyte experienced a surge of COVID-19 cases with 3,033 cases. A total of 2,314 of which are unvaccinated while 320 are vaccinated based on the data from the Provincial Health Office (PHO).
The PHO added that 2,196 of the confirmed cases are asymptomatic, 676 are mild, 350 are moderate, eight are severe, three are critical, with no recorded deaths.
Moreover, on the ongoing vaccination campaign in the province, of the 1,682,729 target population, at least 873,245 residents of Leyte had received at least one dose of vaccines while 809,304 remains to be vaccinated. (ROEL T. AMAZONA)
