THE government has fully vaccinated 841,871 eligible individuals, or 21.3 percent of Central Visayas’ 3,947,710 total target number of individuals for Covid-19 vaccination, covering priority groups A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5, as of Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021.
Dr. Van Philip Baton, medical coordinator for emerging and re-emerging infectious disease program of the Department of Health (DOH) 7, in a press conference on Thursday, Sept. 2, also said about 29 percent or 1,145,345 of the total target number for vaccination have received at least one of the two-dose series of vaccination.
The DOH 7 has initially listed a total of 131,989 priority group A1 or healthcare workers for vaccination and 126,181 of them have received the first dose of the two-dose series of vaccination, while 127,237 of them are fully vaccinated.
Baton said Central Visayas has received a total of 2,910,320 doses of mixed brands of Covid-19 vaccines. However, he said although the national government has received the supply for the second component of the Gamaleya Institute’s Sputnik V vaccine, they are still awaiting advice if Central Visayas will be given allocation.
Moreover, DOH 7 assistant director Guy Perez said though Cebu’s Covid-19 cases have decreased for the past two weeks when the three highly urbanized cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu are under modified enhanced community quarantine, this is still not considered as a “significant decrease.”
“It is still high and we should not let our guards down,” he said in a press conference on Thursday, Sept. 2.
The DOH 7, he said, has deployed 205 healthcare personnel, mostly nurses, as augmentation for Covid response. Perez said 164 of them have been deployed to various hospitals in the region.
Central Visayas recorded a total of 117,468 Covid-19 cases from Jan. 1 to Sept. 1, 2021. Of these, a total of 15,098 remain active, 98,537 others have recovered and 3,833 have died.
Dr. Eugenia Mercedes Cañal, head of the Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit of the DOH 7, said the pediatric cases make up 11 percent or 10,403 cases, of the total cumulative Covid-19 cases in the region.
She said the region also has a two-week growth rate of 0.3 percent increase in the total number of cases with an average daily attack rate (Adar) of 12 percent. The DOH said an Adar of zero to one is considered mild; one to seven is considered moderate risk; while an Adar of above seven is considered high risk. (WBS)