The Department of Tourism (DOT) on Friday announced that 75.39 percent or 236,714 of the total active tourism workers in the country are now vaccinated against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

“We will not stop until we achieve 100 percent vaccination for all our active tourism workers,” Tourism Secretary Berna Romulo-Puyat said as she expressed her satisfaction with the latest figures.

“The DOT welcomes the higher vaccination rate among the various regions in the country -with key destination areas attaining 100 percent coverage already. We thank the National Task Force Against COVID-19 (NTF), most especially to Chief Implementer and Vaccine Czar, Secretary Carlito G. Galvez Jr. and Deputy Chief Implementer Secretary Vince Dizon, the Department of Health (DOH), and our private stakeholders and local government units (LGUs) for the ceaseless support in protecting our tourism workforce – the backbone of our industry, ” she said.

The DOT’s vaccination rollout for active tourism workers started in July 2021.

“Having achieved high vaccination rates in most of our destinations, we are focusing our efforts on the few remaining places with low inoculation numbers,” Romulo-Puyat said.

“This is the DOT’s commitment to the President’s directive to support the “Bayanihan, Bakunahan” three-day nationwide simultaneous vaccination drive on November 29 to December 1, 2021,” she added.

According to the DOT’s data as of November 19, the National Capital Region (NCR) is still the region the highest vaccination coverage for tourism workers with 99.79 percent, followed by Davao Region with 99.11 percent, Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) with 96.79 percent, Central Luzon with 95.10 percent, and Eastern Visayas with 90.55 percent.

The DOT’s inoculation efforts to support the “Bayanihan, Bakunahan” nationwide vaccination drive will focus its coverage on Ilocos Region (67.21 percent), Calabarzon(42.70 percent), and Caraga (30.43 percent). (PR)