- MITCH M. LIPA
The Emergency Operations Center is optimistic that the alert level status of Bacolod City will be deescalated after Feb. 15, following a downtrend of COVID cases in the past four days.
EOC executive director Em Ang said that, from triple digits last week, the cases went down to 80 on Feb. 6, 52 on Feb. 7, and 41 on Feb. 8.
The healthcare capacity utilization rate in Bacolod is also going down, from 80 percent last week to 53 percent, as of Feb. 8. The intensive care unit bed utilization had also gone down by 10 percent, the EOC added.
Bacolod has zero death since Feb. 1, and most of the new cases were asymptomatic.
Ang said this is due to the high vaccination rate in Bacolod City. “More people now in the city had been vaccinated and have resistance against the virus. But the vaccination activities continue in the different bakuna centers as well as in the malls, with most of them for booster shots,” she added.
A team of vaccinators from Bacolod will undergo training in preparation for the expanded pediatric immunization program for five to 11 years old. There is a Department of Health training module that vaccinators have to complete before they are qualified to handle the vaccination of this age category.
Since Bacolod has reached the population protection level or herd immunity against the coronavirus disease, some vaccination teams of the city are augmenting the vaccinators of neighboring Bago City in Negros Occidental to help improve its output.
Three vaccination teams motor to Bago City every day, using the vax-I bus, and administering vaccines from Bacolod.
Ang said it was the DOH that requested Bacolod to help neighboring local government units in their vaccination rollout using the vaccines of the city.
The Bacolod EOC will also help in teaching strategies to convince residents to get vaccinated.
Ang said the city government also plans to assist in the vaccination rollout in Kabankalan City. — MML
