CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Health Department (CHD) revealed that even vaccination sites have been affected by the COVID-19 surge.
Doctor Jeffrey Ibones, the head of the CHD, said that more than ten staff of the vaccination sites, including medical frontliners, tested positive for COVID-19.
These individuals manifested symptoms of the disease and were most likely quarantined prior to their testing, but the CHD still closed the sites for disinfection nonetheless.
Iconic and Ayala Center Cebu are currently closed for disinfection. SM City Cebu, Cebu City Sports Complex, and SM Seaside were closed for around three to five days last week for disinfection.
“Naa gyod tay mga nipositive nga frontliners mao na atong giclose. More than ten in different sites, kasagaran doctors and nurses,” said Ibones.
(There were really some frontliners who were positive that’s why we closed the sites. More than ten in different sites, mostly doctors and nurses.)
The rampant spread of the COVID-19 has caused a slight delay in the vaccination efforts of the city as sites have to be closed for disinfection every time a staff proves positive to the virus.
A site could potentially vaccinate at most a thousand individuals for first, second, and booster doses, which means that a single site closed for a day means a significant deficit in the number of individuals vaccinated.
Still, Ibones said that the city will not take any risks and will put the safety of the public and the vaccinees first, thus, closing affected sites for a period of time.
According to the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), at least 500 medical frontliners in various hospitals in the city were positive for COVID-19 in the past 14 days.
The active cases for medical frontliners cannot be determined as some may have recovered already and since most healthcare workers are vaccinated reducing the isolation period for asymptomatic workers to five days.
Still, Councilor Joel Garganera, the deputy chief implementor of the EOC, said that this has affected the operations of some hospitals, which may be why some COVID-19 patients report slow service in some hospitals.
The hospital utilization rate has remained low with 50 percent for public hospitals and over 40 percent for private hospitals, which the EOC is counting on the remain roughly the same.
After all, 43.55 percent of all COVID-19 6,973 active cases are 43 asymptomatic and 53 percent of them asymptomatic. This translates to at least 2,998 asymptomatic individuals and 3,695 inviduals symptomatic individuals.
Of the symptomatic individuals, 94 percent have mild symptoms, 5.73 have moderate symptoms, and 0.08 have severe symptoms.
Garganera said that while many health care workers are contracting the virus, hospitals are still not overwhelmed because most patients no longer need hospital care.
/bmjo
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