FOR the second time this year, Cebu City reported its lowest daily active case rate on Monday, April 26, 2021.
A report from the Department of Health-Central Visayas (DOH 7) said Cebu City only had 14 new cases reported on Monday, the first time the City had such a significantly low number of new cases this year since Jan. 1 when it reported 13 new cases that day.
Cebu City currently has a total of 836 active cases and 66 new recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 21,490.
It also reported two additional deaths, with the total death toll now at 832.
Cebu City Councilor Joel Garganera, who serves as deputy chief of the city’s Emergency Operation Center (EOC), thanked the public for their cooperation in ensuring that Covid-19 cases in the city remain significantly low.
‘Zero cases’
Garganera also reported that 21 out of the city’s 80 barangays, have reported zero Covid-19 cases in the past 10 days.
The barangays with zero Covid cases are mostly situated in the hinterlands.
Barangay Guadalupe remains on top of the city’s barangays with the most number of active cases with 38 cases left.
During the second surge of Covid-19 cases earlier this year, Guadalupe reported 246 active cases.
Next to Guadalupe is Barangay Lahug with 30 active cases followed by Talamban with 23, Sambag 1 with 21 and Tisa with 20 cases.
The EOC also reported a 23.2 percent critical care occupancy rate in the city’s 15 public and private hospitals from April 16 to 26.
Vaccination
Meanwhile, the vaccination program in Cebu City has hit a snag as it has run out of vaccines. The DOH 7 awaits additional vaccines to arrive from its central office this week.
As of April 26, the DOH 7 has inoculated over 95,000 individuals classified as A1 (medical workers) and A2 (senior citizens).
DOH 7 spokesperson Mary Jean Loreche announced during her daily briefing at the Regional Vaccination Operations Center, that out of 131,781 eligible medical workers under the A1 priority list, only 86,831 were inoculated so far.
Also, out of 572,626 eligible senior citizens, only 8,310 were vaccinated.
Of the 8,310 senior citizens inoculated, 4,924 were from Cebu City, 1,501 from Mandaue City, 928 from Cebu Province, 433 from Lapu-Lapu City, 520 from Siquijor, and four from Negros Oriental.
Loreche said the DOH 7 does not have a buffer stock of vaccines in its storage facility as all SinoVac and AstraZeneca vaccines have been allocated to the different designated vaccination posts.
New brands
There are now six vaccine brands granted with Emergency Use Authorization, Loreche said.
These are SinoVac, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Gamaleya’s Sputnik V, Bharat NovaVax, and Johnson&Johnson.
Loreche said Sputnik V, NovaVax, and Johnson&Johnson use the same technology as AstraZeneca.
SinoVac, AstraZeneca, Johnson&Johnson, and Pfizer require the same storage temperature which is between two degrees to eight degrees centigrade, while Pfizer has to be stored in a -70 degrees Centigrade freezer.
The Sputnik V vaccine has to be stored in a -18 degrees centigrade storage facility, Loreche said.
Of all the vaccines mentioned, Loreche said only Johnson&Johnson is single dose.
Earlier, Loreche said the DOH 7, Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center, as well as other private hospitals in the region are capable of storing these vaccines, which require a colder storage facility.
Due to the storage temperature requirement, Loreche said, highly urbanized cities are most likely to benefit from these vaccines if allocations were to arrive in Central Visayas. (KFD / JKV)