The Bacolod Emergency Operations Center will start its “graveyard shift” vaccination drive this week for employees of Business Process Outsourcing companies.
Mayor Evelio Leonardia, who chairs the EOC, said 180,045 residents have received the vaccines, 79,656 of them fully inoculated, as of Sunday.
EOC executive director Em Ang said the onsite vaccination of call center employees and personnel will start 8 p.m. to 4 a.m., a press release from the city said.
Leonardia ordered the EOC to implement a vaccination program for BPO employees, who are on graveyard shift to fast-track their efforts in giving anti-Covid jabs to as many residents as possible.
“I know how important our BPO industry is to the economic life of the city, that is why we are planning to target evening and graveyard shift call center agents,” Leonardia said in an interview during his visit to the SMX Convention Center Monday.
He noted that the hands of BPO personnel are tied to their jobs, that is why the city government will come to them.
“We saw their enthusiasm to get vaccinated so we will go out of our way to serve those working the night shift in different BPO firms,” he added.
Regular call center agents cannot make it to the scheduled vaccination as they have to leave work while the graveyard shift agents would rather rest after they got home early in the morning, Ang said.
The city is presently implementing the Vax-i mobile vaccination clinic that targets to inoculate workers, like vendors and public transport drivers, who are unable to leave work for a day to go to the vaccination centers, and the “drive thru” vaccination that started Sunday at the 5th Level Parking Area of the Ayala Malls Capitol Central.
Leonardia said this is yet another commitment of his administration to inoculate as many Bacolodnons as possible.
“Our goal is to make the vaccination program more accessible to everyone so we can achieve herd immunity and eradicate Covid-19 as fast as possible,” Leonardia said.
“We are happy that our Vax-i program was widely accepted by our vendors. We thought there would be resistance, or the people will be unaware of it but they were open to the vaccines and we were able to inoculate more than 400 vendors in one day,” he added.*
