Valenzuela City Mayor Rex Gatchalian on Thursday urged residents to sign up for the city’s online vaccine registration to get free shots of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) vaccine.

The city government has recently launched its online vaccine registration for Valenzuela City Vaccination (VCVax) campaign through its Valenzuela contact tracing (ValTrace) website.

To register, residents should visit the webpage www.valtrace.appcase.net and click the “vaccination registration” link.

The city government conducted a simulation on Covid-19 vaccination on Tuesday as part of the city-wide preparations for the arrival and deployment of Covid jabs in the country.

Gatchalian said the simulation is part of the city’s “confidence-building exercise” for its inoculation campaign.

“Gusto naming ipakita sa lokal na mamamayan namin na the local government not only purchased [the vaccines] but more so pinag-aaralan natin yung rollout. Ayaw natin na nandiyan na ‘yung bakuna tsaka lang natin paplanuhin lahat ito (We want to show to our constituents that the local government is not only purchasing vaccines but also planning the vaccination rollout. We don’t want the planning to be done after the vaccines arrive),” he said.

Gatchalian said the city government must be prepared before the arrival and deployment of the vaccines in the country.

The city government targets to inoculate about 71 percent of its population, which means about 320,000 individuals excluding 17 years old and below.

“From my experience, kung ganoon kalaking endeavor, ganoon kalaking pondo ang ginugol [its] PHP150 million in local funds, dapat may perfection, hindi pwedeng masayang (With that kind of massive endeavor and spending as huge as PHP150 million in local funds, it must be perfect and should not be wasted. Do it [simulation] earlier para makita na namin kung saan yung mga potential na problema (so that we can see what are the potential problems),” Gatchalian said.

The city government has recently introduced the “VCVax Covid-19 vaccines rollout plan,” which is a citywide information drive on the immunization program.

“The more information that gets to the hands of the people, the better it is to clarify kung ano man yung agam-agam na mayroon sila (whatever apprehensions they may have),” Gatchalian said. (PNA)