Governor’s strategy helps Lampang locals overcome fear of Covid jab
All Thais have been urged to sign up for their Covid-19 vaccine via the Mor Prom (Doctors Ready) application since May 1 and so far, some 2 million people have registered nationwide.
However, the province of Lampang has proved to be a success story so far, with more than 220,000 of the 740,000 local residents signing up for the jab.
The strategy
Provincial governor Narongsak Osottanakornsaid the only way to get people to register was to get rid of their fear of side effects from the vaccine. So to achieve this, he dispersed local volunteers and public health staff to explain the benefits to people in “clear, simple and easy to understand language”.
“People were also told that this vaccine has been procured by the government and that if they did not get their jabs now, it would become difficult to get one in the future,” he said.
He also said that another big problem was that most elderly people did not know how to register for the vaccine. So, to overcome this problem he set up a 24-hour hotline to advise people on the registration process and also sent out volunteers to help in person.
“Up to 90 per cent of the registrations had been completed thanks to the call centre and volunteers,” Narongsak said, adding that volunteers were only paid THB1,000 a month for their hard work.
Targeting herd immunity
Narongsak said the aim is to inoculate up to 70 per cent of the local population, and that vaccines will be administered at both provincial and private hospitals.
“We expect to vaccinate 5,000 people daily, which will see some 150,000 people inoculated in 30 days,” he said, adding that it would be even better if 6,000 jabs could be administered daily.