San Miguel Corporation’s (SMC) “Ligtas Lahat” vaccination program switched to high-gear with the deployment to more cities of more medical professionals it hired to augment government medical teams administering vaccines at various vaccination sites.

From April 26 to June 22, over 100 SMC medical doctors and nurses have helped administer an estimated 179,644 vaccines in five cities: Mandaluyong, Malabon, Manila, Paranaque, and Quezon City. SMC expects its number of medical workers deployed to reach about 200 in a few weeks.

SMC has also partnered with local government units (LGUs) to start vaccinating its A4 employees while waiting for its own vaccines to arrive. To date, 3,521 of its own front line and essential workers have been vaccinated at three vaccination sites the company has opened.

“Even if the vaccines we ordered have yet to arrive, we are all systems go when it comes to vaccination efforts. Our ‘SMC Ligtas Lahat’ task force teams are working full-time to do whatever we can to support our Metro Manila local governments as they implement their vaccination programs,” said SMC president Ramon S. Ang.

“We’re hiring more medical personnel and deploying them to city vaccination sites, and at the same time providing the facilities to enable our LGUs to vaccinate as many of our A4 workers. This is the best way we can help achieve herd immunity, get our economy going, get people working and earning safely again, and ultimately, protect more Filipinos from strains of the COVID-19 virus,” Ang added.

Since June 3, SMC has also been jointly managing, together with the Mandaluyong LGU, a vaccination site at Jose Rizal University (JRU) in its home city. The site, manned by 20 nurses and 10 doctors from SMC, vaccinates some 1,000 individuals per day.

Ang said that even before its own supply of Moderna and Astra Zeneca vaccines– ordered under a P1 billion program to vaccinate some 70,000 in its workforce and their families–start arriving next month, SMC has already implemented programs to educate its employees about vaccines, and enable them to get these through partnerships with LGUs.

The number of San Miguel employees that have been fully vaccinated or at least given their first shot, according to Ang, could be higher than the 3,521 A4 workers.

This is because the number does not include those who, along with their families, got their jabs as A2 (senior citizens) and A3 (persons with comorbidities) at their areas of residence.

For its NCR-based A4 category workers, SMC has utilized three vaccination sites: Jose Rizal University in Mandaluyong, La Salle Green Hills, and the new SMC Sports Complex at a company property along C-5 in Pasig. The SMC Sports Complex will be a dedicated site for employees under the company’s vaccination program.

Vaccinations at these sites are done through partnerships with the various LGUs where the company’s facilities are located.

“We’re grateful to our partner LGUs and our medical front liners for helping get our essential workers vaccinated. With new variants of COVID-19 emerging such as the Delta variant, which is supposedly more transmissible, our immediate goal is to get as many people vaccinated as soon as possible,” Ang said.

“We reiterate government’s advice for everyone to get vaccinated and to continue to consciously follow health protocols. Regardless of brand, all vaccines are proven to offer protection by preventing serious illness and even death,” he added.

Once fully operational in August, the LSGH site is estimated to accommodate up to 1,000 persons per day.

Aside from the LSGH and JRU sites in Mandaluyong, Ang said SMC is eyeing 14 other vaccination sites in Laguna, Cavite, Batangas, Albay, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Isabela, Bataan, Cebu, Iloilo, Bacolod, Davao, and Cagayan de Oro through partnerships with LGUs and other health care providers.

The company is also looking to hire a total of 300 medical professionals for its nationwide vaccination rollout and to help its partner LGUs.