Gov. Arthur Yap issued a memorandum to the Provincial Health Office (PHO) regarding the vaccine rollout prioritization involving the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine, according to a document provided to the Bohol Tribune on July 23, 2021.
The governor said that in accordance with the issuances of the national Inter Agency Task Force (IATF) and the Bohol IATF, the one-shot J&J vaccines should be administered to unvaccinated senior citizens, unvaccinated persons with co-morbidities, and overseas Filipino workers (OFW) who need to return to their respective work abroad.
Moreover, the governor wrote in the same memorandum that the said vaccine brand should be rolled out to local government units here in the province, which are experiencing a surge of Coronavirus disease (Covid) cases and in geographically isolated and depressed areas of Bohol.
As this developed, PHO officer-in-charge Dr. Cesar Tomas Lopez, according to reports, said all 47 towns of Bohol and Tagbilaran City each received a share of the J&J vaccine supply that arrived in the province on July 19, 2021 from Manila.
The rollout of said vaccine brand kicked off on July 22, 2021 in a ceremonial vaccination event following the State of the Province Address (SOPA) of Yap.
The national government, through vaccine czar Sec. Carlito Galvez, allocated 50,000 J&J jabs for Bohol.
Yap personally met with Galvez on July 17, 2021 to secure the J&J vaccine doses for Bohol, which were first reported by The Bohol Tribune on July 18, 2021.Unlike most vaccine brands being administered in the country, the vaccine made by Johnson and Johnson is a one-shot vaccine.
It means that it takes only one dose to fully immunize a person against Covid, according to reports.