Lucena records big decline in COVID-19 cases

HAPPY PLACE The Quezon provincial capitol complex in Lucena City has turned into a happy place this holiday season as Christmas lights and displays cheer residents and visitors. —DELFIN MALLARI JR.

LUCENA CITY—This city showed a remarkable decline of COVID-19 cases, with nine recorded during the past 11 days.

From Nov. 12 to 22, the City Health Office logged one COVID-19 case in its daily tally except on Nov. 13 and Nov. 18, when no new infection was recorded.

The CHO recorded only a total of 33 COVID-19 cases so far, or an average of 1.5 a day.

In October, the CHO recorded 627 COVID-19 cases, lower than the 880 in September.

The recorded active cases in Lucena as of Nov. 22 declined to 55 from the highest single-day tally of 570 on Oct. 13.

Lucena is under the less stringent Alert Level 2 until the end of the month.

As of Monday, 174,134 residents in this city have been administered vaccines against COVID-19.

Arnel Avila, city public information officer, citing the latest data from the CHO, reported that 73,630 residents had been vaccinated fully, while  100,504 had their first dose.

Lucena, a highly urbanized city, needs to inoculate at least 186,000 of its 266,000 population as of the 2015 census to achieve herd immunity.

The fully vaccinated individuals are 39.5 percent of the target population.

Mayor Roderick Alcala said more COVID-19 vaccines would arrive in the coming days for continuous immunization of qualified residents.

Alcala has called on city folk to remain vigilant amid the continuous dramatic drop of COVID-19 cases in the city.

“We’re now preparing for the upcoming three-day vaccination drive,” Arnel Avila, city PIO, said in a phone interview.

The national government has set a three-day national vaccination drive from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1 to ramp up the country’s COVID-19 immunizations.

The city recorded 211 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic started in March last year.

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