Garganera: Cebu City needs ‘steady vax supply’

A Cebu City health worker gets her COVID-19 vaccine shot. | CDND File Photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines – Locals here are urged to join in lobbying for a “steady supply of COVID-19 vaccines” for the city.

Councilor Joel Garganera made this call as Cebu City experiences another spike of new COVID-19 cases.

Garganera, who heads the city’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC), said that amid the increase in new infections, critical care utilization rates in the city remain far from alarming levels.

But he added that healthcare authorities can bring the occupancy rates even lower if the city is given more resources to ramp up its vaccination drive.

“Almost 100 na ang nahospital (were already hospitalized) from Cebu City alone, our Covid Care Occupancy is still very much safe at 35 percent, but we really need to be vaccinated because it will really [help] prevent [us] from getting severe [infection], hospitalized or even death,” Garganera explained.

According to the EOC czar, Cebu City, with a population of nearly one million based on the latest census, is still far from reaching its goal of achieving herd immunity.

“So far, layo pa kaayo ta sa tinood (we’re still far from reaching our goal). 8.3 percent pa atong na fully vaccinated sa atong eligible residents (of our eligible residents were fully vaccinated). In other words, one in every 12 pa sa atong eligible residents nga na fully vaccinated (of our eligible residents) were fully vaccinated,” Garganera pointed out.

“Let’s lobby for the steady supply of our vaccines aron ma achieve na nato ang herd immunity (so we can achieve the herd immunity),” he added.

Data from the EOC showed that as of July 9, Critical Care Occupancy Rates of public and private hospitals here were at 35.1 percent and 29.9 percent respectively.

Critical care rates are usually gauged to determine the gravity of the COVID-19 outbreak in an area. Hospitals and health officials usually sound the alarm when occupancy levels go beyond 60 percent.

Based on the latest COVID-19 bulletin from the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7), the number of active cases in Cebu City has slightly increased to 1, 114.

This after they logged 91 new cases of the infection on Sunday, July 11.

They also recorded 53 additional recoveries and one mortality related to COVID-19 on the same date.

Cebu City has been placed under Modified General Community Quarantine (MGCQ) since September in 2020. /dcb

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