About 90 percent of coronavirus disease-19 deaths in Negros Oriental were unvaccinated individuals, a health official said.
There were also deaths among vaccinated individuals but they had comorbidities like cancer, hypertension, diabetes, and other illnesses, Assistant Provincial Health Officer Dr. Liland Estacion said during a virtual presser on Friday afternoon.
Negros Oriental has 750 coronavirus-related deaths as of Friday, according to Department of Health data.
This capital city has the highest number of CoViD deaths at 158, while the rest of the towns and cities recorded double-digit mortalities.
“Please have yourselves vaccinated now against CoViD-19 as this is a layer of protection against the disease. Do not believe the myths and conspiracy theories surrounding the vaccine,” Dr. Estacion appealed to the public in mixed English and Cebuano.
Meanwhile, Dr. Estacion revealed that cases of CoViD-19 in Negros Oriental have started to decline this month, following a sudden spike in January, believed to be driven by the Omicron variant.
“I think this is now the start of the decline of CoViD-19 cases in the Province, and I hope this trend will now continue, but still, we should not let our guards down,” she said, as she called on the people to continue to adhere to the minimum health protocols.
Test results from Jan. 27-31 showed a total of 905 new infections, which was the “peak” of the latest surge in the Province, Dr. Estacion noted.
While the Province has not yet received the results of 50 specimens sent last month to the Philippine Genome Center for sequencing to determine the presence of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant, she said “the behavior of the virus being transmitted rapidly, and infecting [entire] households, and very young children makes us believe it is this type of CoViD-19 that is behind the latest surge”.
As of Feb. 4, the total case count in Negros Oriental is 22,620, broken down into 20,403 recoveries, 1,524 active infections, and 693 mortalities.
On Jan. 31, the total active infections reached a high of 1,623, since the latest surge began at the start of the year. (Judy F. Partlow/PNA)
