96% of virus fatalities in Baguio unvaccinated

BAGUIO CITY: Ninety-six percent of recent coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) deaths in the Summer Capital involved patients who had not been vaccinated.

Dr. Donnabel Panes, City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (CESU) head, said of the 106 fatalities recorded from April 19 to July 5, only four percent or four individuals had at least one dose of the vaccine while 102 had none.

“There were 34, who registered for vaccination. So, they were willing to get vaccinated but did not make it,” Panes added.

She said the city needs to ramp up the vaccination program to realize its impact and that more efforts should be exerted to have the vulnerable population, especially senior citizens, inoculated.

“We started vaccinating our senior citizens last April, and since April, we have had 106 deaths, most of them seniors. This means that we have to vaccinate all our elderly to protect them from developing severe symptoms that may lead to death,” Panes added.

The mean average age of those who died was 65 with an age range of 41 to 99.

Males comprised 67 percent of these deaths while 33 percent were females.

According to the City Health Services Office (CHSO), a total of 22,718 senior citizens have registered for vaccination, but only 60 percent or 13,538 received full vaccination.

As of July 13, it recorded a total of 292 deaths out of the 14,760 cases for a case fatality rate of 1.98 percent.

“Our case fatality rate is now low at 1.98 percent, but is still higher than the national rate at 1.79 percent. We have been seeing [fewer] deaths in the city since June,” Panes said.

The CESU, under the CHSO, and the Management Information Technology Division of the City Mayor’s Office analyzed the profile of Covid-19 deaths to determine the effect of the ongoing vaccination as to the positive cases and deaths.

Mayor Benjamin Magalong had been advocating for the vaccination of senior citizens despite limited supply of vaccines by locating and convincing them and through the mobile vaccination and the onestep special lane programs to curb the high incidence of death among the sector.