Bicol logs 94 COVID deaths in a week

BISHOP IS VAXXED Albay Bishop Joel Baylon gets his vaccine against COVID-19 during the vaccination rollout at St. Gregory the Great Cathedral in Legazpi City on Nov. 29, a day before the national vaccination drive started. —PHOTO COURTESY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH FACEBOOK PAGE

LEGAZPI CITY, Albay, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) in Bicol said on Sunday that 94 individuals who fell critically ill of COVID-19 have died of the viral disease during the past seven days.

DOH COVID-19 updates indicated that for the period from Nov. 28 to Dec. 4, daily mortality rate ranged from 10 to 19 death cases. The dates with most deaths recorded were on Nov. 29 (19 deaths), Dec. 1 (15) and Dec. 5 (14).

The recent death cases have brought to 1,856 the cumulative deaths in the Bicol region since March last year when the pandemic started.

Downtrend

DOH data showed that among the provinces in Bicol, Albay had the highest death rate with 53 cases (56 percent), followed by Camarines Norte with 25 (27 percent), Legazpi City with nine and Sorsogon with two cases. The island provinces of Catanduanes and Masbate recorded no deaths during the period.

Despite the number of deaths over the last week, the latest COVID-19 update in Bicol said infections in the region were on the downtrend with 3,851 people still sick of the viral disease. The region has recorded 46,695 infections from March 27, 2020, to Dec. 4.

Local governments in Bicol also continued to encourage residents to avail of the COVID-19 vaccine, since only a little over half of its eligible population have so far received the jab despite the national vaccination drive.

The DOH in Bicol said it had registered a total of 707,077 vaccinated individuals during the national vaccination drive from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3. The figure was 61 percent of the region’s target number of 1.1 million during the drive, according to the Vaccination Operations Reporting System in Bicol.

Most of the provinces in Bicol have also reached at least 50 percent of their target goal for the national vaccination days.

Catanduanes was at 92 percent of its target, followed by Camarines Sur (61 percent), Albay (56 percent), Sorsogon (55 percent), Camarines Norte (46 percent) and Masbate (39 percent).

The regional DOH said some local governments even reached more than 100 percent of their targeted goal, such as Legazpi City in Albay; the municipalities of Bagamanoc, Baras, Gigmoto and Panganiban in Catanduanes; Cabusao in Camarines Sur; and Bulusan in Sorsogon.

Overall, Bicol has vaccinated almost 2.5 million out of the 4.3 million target population, the DOH said.

The region population as of the 2020 census is 6,082,165, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.