By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga
Negros Occidental Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz yesterday said that the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Provincial Incident Management Team (PIMT) confirmed that the province’s COVID-19 hospital bed occupancy and positivity rate are steadily dropping.
According to Diaz, who recently met with DILG and PIMT officials, some towns and cities in the province are now recording a reduction in the number of active cases, although he affirmed that some areas of the province such as Kabankalan City are recording a slight increase in COVID-19 cases.
“We’re still managing everything, our schedule of vaccinations are already in place and they [local government units] have to respect and implement their schedule,” Diaz said.
With the threat of the Delta variant, Diaz said they are now considering using their procured AstraZeneca vaccines as a booster shot for the province’s health workers who have already completed their jabs using the CoronaVac vaccine made by Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac.
He pointed out cases in Indonesia, wherein health workers who are fully vaccinated with the CoronaVac jab, have suffered breakthrough infections due to the Delta variant with around 160 vaccinated medical staff dying from the variant.
“I’ve made the appeal to them during the meeting to study the possibility of using AstraZeneca as a booster to fight against the Delta variant,” Diaz said.
Earlier, the provincial government received 2,900 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines which are part of the 100,000 doses they ordered earlier this year.
The British-Swedish made vaccine is currently being used to inoculate those belonging to the A4 category or frontline economic workers in the province.
The doses however are still meager and Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson had already expressed disappointment over the meager shipment, pointing out they were led to believe that the AstraZeneca vaccines would arrive first in the country.
As of July 21, the PIMT reported 1,613 active COVID-19 cases in the province.
Data also shows that the areas of Candoni, Don Salvador Benedicto, Pontevedra, and Toboso have shown around 0 to 10 active COVID-19 cases.
Areas previously identified as hotspots such as San Carlos City has also seen a drastic drop in COVID-19 cases from around 200+ earlier this year to just 11 to 30 active cases./DGB, WDJ