Posted on: Tue 26-01-2021

The Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Gbenga Omotoso, has said the state will priotise health workers when its COVID-19 vaccines arrive.

Omotoso, in an interview with our correspondent on Monday, said although there is no date for the arrival of the vaccines yet, the state government would not collect money from citizens before vaccinating them.

“The criteria have not been set yet, but I suspect that as it is done in other places, maybe health workers will get the vaccines first. The thinking is that by the time we vaccinate 60 per cent of Lagosians, we would have developed what is called herd immunity.

“In the fight against COVID-19, Lagos State has done everything to ensure that residents of the state don’t have to pay personally for test and treatment. I think the same will apply to the vaccines. Lagos will not ask residents to pay before being vaccinated,” Omotoso said.

He said the state would not have a problem with the storage of the vaccines, saying there are enough storage facilities in the state.

Recall that the governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, during a live television programme on Channels TV, revealed the state’s plan on coronavirus vaccine rollout and the effort to bolster mass vaccination of residents in the State.

Sanwo-Olu said the state was aiming to achieve 60 per cent vaccine rollout when the vaccination programme commences in the coming weeks, stressing that the figure would help check the rate of transmission and build the resilience of the state against the virus.

He said the state government does not have the plan to make the COVID-19 vaccine available to all residents, as the state may not have the resources to do that.

“We want the Federal Government to take the lead in getting the vaccine. As a sub-national government, we are taking our destiny into our hands. We have started conversation with some of the vaccine manufacturers. I have made contact with Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca. Developers of Moderna have written to us and we have written back to them.

“We don’t have to vaccinate the whole of 22 million people in Lagos. The plan is around ensuring that there is herd immunity and that typically speaks to 50 to 60 percent of our population. That’s the target we need to really meet in vaccine rollout,” Sanwo-Olu said.

The governor noted that the state intends to fund the vaccination programme with the bulk of the finances would be realised from the private sector donations and international grants, adding that the state government also had allocation for COVID-19 project in its 2021 budget.

Source: Punch

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