- MITCH M. LIPA
Negros Occidental Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz is reviewing the need to create another Emergency Operation Center that will focus on the vaccination rollout program.
Diaz said he forwarded to the Provincial Legal Office for review the request of Provincial Health Officer Ernell Tumimbang for the creation of an EOC for vaccination.
He said the province established last year the EOC with the Governor, the Provincial Administrator and the Provincial Health Officer as the lead officials and it will be redundant to create another body with the same personalities involved..
The province had also established the Command Center at the Negros Residences since last year, where operations are manned by representatives of the different national and local government agencies.
The PHO awaits the decision of the provincial administrator before Tumimbang will relay the creation of local EOCs in every town and city.
The proposal includes suggestions to hold a vaccination dry run in the provincial level before the PHO will require them to form their own EOC for vaccination.
The dry run will test the time accuracy of the vaccination procedure.
Two weeks ago, Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson, Diaz, and Tumimbang discussed the requirements of the vaccination program.
It was proposed that cities with bigger budgets may acquire their own biomedical freezers for the vaccines while the province will rent mobile cooling facilities to deliver the vaccines to the different local government units. – MML
