Vaccine confidence a concern as inoculation of essential workers begins Monday: official

MANILA - Convincing people from the private sector to get COVID-19 vaccines poses a challenge, Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said Saturday, two days before inoculations of economic frontliners are set to begin.

In a public press briefing, Concepcion said companies from the private sector are setting up programs to boost vaccine confidence among their workers. 

"Ang primary concern lang namin sa private sector ay ‘yung confidence. Marami kaming programa na for our employees to help convince them to get the vaccine, ‘yun ang importante kasi marami kaming binili," Concepcion said. 

(Our primary concern in the private sector is confidence. We have many programs for our employees to help convince them to get the vaccine, that's what's important because we bought a lot.)

The national government will be holding a "ceremonial" rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations of those under the A4 category— economic frontliners from the private sector or government workers required to report physically for work— on Monday at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City. 

The government earlier said economic frontliners are not covered by the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines donated by vaccine-sharing facility COVAX, as these may only be used for people in the A1, A2, and A3 category or health workers, senior citizens, and people with comorbidities. 

For now, those under the A4 category may be inoculated with Sinovac or Sputnik V vaccines. 

COVID-19 jabs secured by the private sector for those under the A4 category, such as AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines, are expected to arrive from July onwards. Concepcion said they will send out assigned allocations to companies come next week. 

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