Lawyers, judges, and other employees in the justice sector are included in priority category A4 of the government’s vaccination plan, Department of Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said yesterday.
The A4 category includes non-medical frontline personnel in essential sectors, both public and private, uniformed personnel, those with high levels of interaction with or exposure to the public, and workers in priority government projects.
“Judges, prosecutors, public attorneys, and similar individuals directly involved in the dispensation of justice have been included by the Inter-Agency Task Force in priority A4 of the national vaccination program,” Guevarra said in a statement.
He made the clarification following the request of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, through its national president, Domingo Cayosa, to include lawyers on the A4 list.
National Task Force against Covid-19 chief implementer, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., also said the A4 and A5 (indigents) recipients may be inoculated by May.
The list of justice sector beneficiaries will be determined by the Department of Justice, IBP and clerks of court.
RECOVERIES
Meanwhile, at least 267 more patients have recovered from Covid-19, pushing the country’s overall recovery count to 703,625, as of yesterday.
In its latest case bulletin, the DOH said those who have beaten the illness accounted for 80.3 percent of the Philippines’ total case tally which has reached 876,225.
The agency also reported 11,378 new confirmed cases, and 204 new deaths.
These figures brought the overall tally of active cases to 157,451 and the death toll to 15,149.
The DOH said about 97 percent of the active cases are mild, 1.7 percent are asymptomatic, 0.5 percent are severe, 0.32 percent are moderate, and 0.5 percent are in critical condition.
“There were 21 duplicates removed from the total case count as 12 of these are recoveries. Moreover, 34 cases previously tagged as recovered were reclassified as deaths after final validation,” it said.
The DOH data on April 11 showed that 19.5 percent of 27,378 who were tested turned out positive for Covid-19.
Six laboratories were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System on April 11.
To date, 65 percent of 1,900 intensive care unit beds, 50 percent of 13,500 isolation beds, 52 percent of 6,000 ward beds, and 44 percent of 2,000 ventilators dedicated to patients with Covid-19 are in use nationwide.
The public is reminded to stay at home and to observe minimum health standards when going out.
The DOH urged those experiencing Covid-19 symptoms to immediately isolate and contact the nearest barangay health emergency response team.*PNA
