ONLY 75 percent of Baguio health workers are willing to get vaccinated against Covid-19, based on a recent survey by the Department of Health.
However, Dr. Rowena Galpo, head of the City Health Services Office (CHSO), said that as frontlines against the Covid-19, the city's health workers are expected to show a higher number of acceptability when it comes to vaccination.
"When DOH conducted a survey during a training among health workers, the results showed a 75 percent acceptability which is not high particularly for health workers," Galpo said.
In a separate survey conducted by the Smoke Free Baguio, 65 percent out of the 1,000 respondents are willing to be vaccinated.
Galpo said with the low outcome of the survey, the CHSO is set to come up with other information and education measures to convince Baguio residents the vaccine to be acquired by the city government is safe, effective, and lesser risks.
"We want to remind the public on our earlier strategy on prevention like the wearing of masks, face shields, distancing, washing of hands among others. We are doing D or detection and contact tracing to locate, I for isolation to prevent the spread of the virus specially for the vulnerable sectors, and then placement or when they are admitted in the hospitals for severe cases and treatment, on healing wherein in we help them integrate in the community and finally this vaccination wherein we are hoping that this will end this pandemic even as Covid-19 will not really be finished because what we want to achieve is to prevent the surge of cases," Galpo said.
As of February 18, Baguio City has 209 Covid-19 active cases, while 103 have already died since the start of the pandemic, with a case fatality rate of 1.91 percent.
The city health official said the cases are on a downtrend based on the admission in isolation facilities and hospitals where patients positive for the coronavirus are segregated.
Baguio City's occupancy rate based on its February 15 records showed a 19.8 percent rating in isolation facilities with isolation beds used for Covid-19 cases at 44 percent.
"We consider this as an improvement as compared to several weeks ago where we were at a danger zone when it comes to the utilization of our hospitals. This is where we see the picture that there is an improvement in terms of Covid-19 management. We still have to lower the cases particularly the severe cases because we have a high utilization of our hospitals," Galpo added.
Galpo said majority of the Covid-related deaths belong to the vulnerable groups like senior citizens or with underlying conditions such as those with diabetes, hypertension, those undergoing dialysis, chemotherapy or those with low immunity.