NegOcc hospital occupancy, Covid-19 positivity rate dropping
NEGROS OCCIDENTAL Provincial Administrator lawyer Rayfrando Diaz on Thursday, July 22, 2021, said hospital occupancy and positivity rate of Covid-19 in the province are already dropping.
Diaz on Thursday said he has recently met with officials from the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Provincial Incident Management Team (PIMT) confirming the situation.
According to Diaz, some towns and cities in the province are now recording a reduction in the number of active cases, although that there are some areas like Kabankalan City that have recorded a slight increase in Covid-19 cases.
"We're still managing everything, our schedule of vaccinations are already in place and the 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 their health workers who have already completed their jabs using the CoronaVac vaccine made by Chinese pharmaceutical firm, Sinovac.
Diaz said 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.
The provincial government received last week 2,900 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines, which are part of the 100,000 doses they ordered earlier this year.
As of July 21, the PIMT reported 1,613 active Covid-19 cases in the province.
Data also showed that the areas of Candoni, Don Salvador Benedicto, Pontevedra and Toboso have shown around zero to 10 active Covid-19 cases.
Areas previously identified as hotspots such as San Carlos City have also seen a drastic drop in Covid-19 from around 200+ earlier this year to just 11 to 30 active cases.