Sucat Officials Boost Vaccination by Raffling Off Sacks of Rice

Given the increasing rate of vaccine hesitancy across the country, a community has recently decided to raffle huge sacks of rice as an incentive for people to get inoculated against COVID-19.

In Sucat, at least twenty weekly winners who get vaccine jabs will have a chance to take home a 25-kg sack of rice each. Local official Jeramel Mendoza started the initiative with the goal of encouraging the less fortunate, who are among the communities less inclined to get vaccinated.

“Initially, when we conducted our vaccination drive, there were very few people signing up. So we asked ourselves why?” wondered Mendoza. “Why are those rich people or those who live in exclusive villages able to lead the vaccinations, but our poorer sectors do not to join in or participate?”

Since the program was launched at the end of May, Sucat has been able to administer close to 2,000 vaccine doses daily. This was a significant increase compared to the 400 jabs they were delivering before.

“It’s a nice initiative and I feel safer after being vaccinated. I’m happy I got vaccinated while winning some rice,” said firefighter Almond Gregorio, who also got a hold of a winning raffle ticket.

So far, only about 2 million people have been fully vaccinated out of the approximately 110 million population of the Philippines. Securing vaccine supplies has also been difficult, but massive amounts of doses are expected to arrive in the country soon.

Source: The Business Times