BACOLOD City – The Emergency Operations Center-Task Force (EOC-TF) here is encouraging residents to avail themselves of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines.
The city’s COVID death toll in September alone reached 168 – a 121.05-percent increase from the 76 deaths logged in September last year.
Of the fatalities this year, 83 percent were unvaccinated against COVID-19, according to City Administrator Em Ang, executive director of EOC.
Most of these unvaccinated patients died of severe COVID.
Bacolod was logging 109 infections daily, according to Ang.
Meanwhile, City Health Office officer-in-charge Edwin Miraflor Jr. said the “rampant” spread of COVID-19 cases was observed in areas with low vaccination rates.
Yesterday, the city recorded 90 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of active cases to 2,113, based on the data from the Department of Health in Region 6.
The city also logged 10 new deaths.
In a statement, EOC traced vaccine hesitancy to fake information about vaccination spreading on various social media platforms.
EOC also lamented the skepticism of many residents on the existence of COVID “despite the congested COVID-19 wards in the government and private hospitals in Bacolod City.”
This false information and belief, the EOC-TF pointed out, also led to poor compliance with the minimum health protocols.
Recently, Bacolod was tagged by the OCTA Research Group as “critical risk” area for COVID-19.
According to OCTA Research fellow Professor Guido David, the city is facing a “new surge” in cases attributed to the more contagious Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
David said the seven-day average in new cases here increased by 21 percent based on their Sept. 26 to Oct. 2 monitoring.
Although the reproduction number already decreased from a peak of 1.86 on Sept. 15 to the current 1.37, cases were still rising, David said.
The average daily attack rate was also at 26.93 per day (per 100,000 population), that is, at critical level./PN
