By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

The provincial government of Negros Occidental has made several changes on its planned mass vaccination simulation exercises (simex) which will take place on March 12.

Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said the activity was supposed to be conducted in Candoni town, however they have decided to change it to the town of Murcia instead.

Lacson explained that the reason why they changed it was because Murcia was much nearer and much more centered making it easily accessible to the various representatives of local government units (LGU) in the province to attend and observe the exercise.

Previously, Candoni was chosen because it is the furthest LGU of the province and also identified as the most difficult area to enter.

It was also previously concluded that if the dry run is successful in the town, it would also mean that other areas of the province which are not that accessible can still be properly supplied with the vaccines.

A total of 6,300 doses of Sinovac vaccines arrived yesterday at the Bacolod-Silay Airport which will be distributed to health workers of the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital and the Dr. Pablo O. Torre Memorial Hospital (Riverside Medical Center).

The provincial government had also made an order of 100,000 AstraZeneca vaccines which would be distributed to Capitol-run hospitals, although there is still no information as to when they would be delivered.

However, Lacson had already appealed to the second and first level hospitals in the province to participate in the vaccination as they were included in the government’s priorities./DGB, WDJ