Info drive on Covid vaccination set

GOVERNMENT agencies in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) will join hands to help in the information dissemination campaign on Covid-19 and the importance of acquiring the vaccine.

Doctor Ruby Constantino, Department of Health (DOH)–CAR regional director, said part of the information campaign are the benefits of being vaccinated against Covid-19.

“They are part of the vaccine operation cluster of the Regional Task Force or RTF and in fact, they are also participants when we did the trainers training this January. Part of this training is on the importance of the vaccine to be used against the coronavirus,” Constantino said.

The Police Regional Office-Cordillera (PRO-COR), in its efforts to assist DOH and the Department of the Interior and Local Government(DILG), has established its speakers’ bureau to inform the public on the importance of observing four areas in preventing the possible spread of the coronavirus in communities in the region, aside from the importance of being vaccinated.

Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief General Debold Sinas, in his recent visit to PRO-COR, said the infodemic drive has four stages that will be cascaded by the speakers’ bureau to police stations, the provision of trauma care such as assistance and health tests response in partnership with local government units, the implementation of the four-minute exercise, and the establishment of station health units to be cascaded by the health services unit of the regional command, and the importance of the vaccination process.

“We have made an infodemics campaign, which is the Coronavirus Awareness Response and Empowerment or Care program, which is a one hour dialogue and presentation on the background of the coronavirus, how the virus starts, what is its effect and how to combat the virus like the wearing of masks, shields among others which came from the Department of Health. We created a speakers bureau from the PNP like what the Police Regional Office Cordillera have done to help in the information dissemination campaign on Covid-19,” Sinas earlier said.

Under the Care program, selected speakers that have undergone training in public speaking are tasked to reiterate the importance of applying the health department’s campaign for mothers and the community to be aware of Bida or “Bawal and walang mask, Idisinfect ang face shields, Distansya sa bawat isa, at Alamin ang taming impormasyon.”

The program decentralizes functions of the Regional Health Unit to health stations from units at the station level. This will also help police regional isolation facilities to not be overwhelmed by police personnel found to be positive for the virus, who can now be isolated in Covid-19 health facilities at the station level.

The Care infodemic drive will also serve as a template for future information campaigns to be instituted by the PNP.