Lawmaker Wants Teachers Prioritized for COVID-19 Vaccines Too

Teachers should be included in the priority list for COVID-19 vaccines in the Philippines, a lawmaker said as he highlighted that teachers are frontliners too.

While teachers are not medical frontliners, many of them have been physically reporting for work in schools during the community quarantines, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said as the country prepares for its own COVID-19 immunization program. There are some 900,000 teachers in the country.

“Ang ating mga guro, mga punong-guro, at kawani ng mga paaralan ay nagsisilbing mga frontliners sa pagpapatuloy ng edukasyon, nararapat lamang na mabilang sila sa mga unang makatatanggap ng bakuna laban sa COVID-19,” Gatchalian said.

(Our teachers, principals, and school staff also serve as frontliners in pursuing the education of children. It’s only proper that they are among those who first receive vaccines against COVID-19.)

The government has outlined its priority list once supplies of COVID-19 vaccines arrive in the country. Top of the government’s mind are medical frontliners such as doctors, nurses, and other hospital workers.

This is followed by the elderly who are known to be most vulnerable to the virus, law enforcers such as the police and the military, and then other frontliners such as workers employed in industries that provide basic goods and services.

Earlier, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the government, “at a best case scenario” is hoping to start its mass COVID-19 immunization program by late March. Some 20 million people are eyed to be inoculated.