By Raydes Barcia
Legazpi City—As the coronavirus spikes in Bicol region tremendously for two weeks now, the city government of Legazpi opened its doors to non-residents in a bid to help the government’s effort to inoculate unvaccinated Bicolanos thus avail full-dose vaccination including booster shots here.
Legazpi City Mayor Noel Rosal gave a green light to the vaccination team of the city allowing non-residents to avail the full dose and booster shot inoculation after the city government ranked first in the region’s vaccination efficiency based on the record of the Department of Health here.
Rosal said that non-residents of Legazpi can now avail the full-dose vaccination and booster shots in Legazpi City to help the neighboring local government units in the vaccination rollout.
Rosal’s move is in solidarity with the neighboring local government units (LGUs) with low vaccine allocations.
Legazpi City is among the country’s priority cities for inoculation as the region’s center of trade and commerce and seat of national government agencies.
“Our vaccination efficiency in Legazpi is 92 percent and the first local government in Bicol that reached herd immunity as stated by the Department of Health. With this, we are opening our doors to non-residents of Legazpi, the neighboring LGUs to avail the full-dose vaccination including booster shots,” Rosal said.
Earlier, the city government of Legazpi allowed the vaccination of the non-Legazpenos but working in Legazpi. Yesterday, Rosal convened a meeting with the vaccination team allowing the vaccinations of all Bicolanos, specifically the Albayanos from the neighboring local government units to help the government vaccination rollout.
The Center for Health and Development-Department of Health (CHD-DOH) in Bicol is targeting to inoculate at least 4,335,045 or 70 percent of the 6,082,165 million Bicolanos.
Currently, there are 3,134,732 Bicolanos receiving the single dose of Covid-19 vaccine.
Based on the record of the CHD-DOH Bicol, Legazpi City, the region’s hub, vaccinated 92 percent of the 147,643-target population. The health department reported that at least 163,381 residents of Legazpi vaccinated for first dose Covid-19 vaccines and 135,318 persons fully vaccinated.
Next to Legazpi City with the highest number of vaccination efficiency is Sorsogon City with a target population of 126,885 but the fully vaccinated is 95,505 or 75.27 percent. Tabaco City—target population is 100,507; the totally vaccinated is 74,810 or 74.43 percent; Naga City—target population is 146,035, the totally vaccinated is 107,613 or 73.69 percent; Iriga City—target population is 83,266—totally vaccinated is 60,422 or 72.57 percent; Ligao City —target population is 83,642—totally vaccinated is 59,525 or 71.17 percent; Masbate City—target population is 70,704—the vaccinated people is 49,573 or 70.11 percent.
As to the six provinces of Bicol, the island province of Catanduanes has the highest rate of vaccination from its target population of 192,531. Todate, at least 153,885 people or 79.93 percent totally vaccinated with 24,457 remaining unvaccinated.
Next to Catanduanes with highest efficiency vaccination is Sorsogon with 476,473 or 70 percent of target population for vaccination, at least 291,700 inoculated followed by Albay with 388,672 totally inoculated out of 661,643 target population; Camarines Sur, target population is 1,235,934 but the current totally inoculated is 682,678. In Camarines Norte, the target population to be vaccinated is 445,145 but the total number of vaccinated is 212,243.
While Masbate province has the lowest vaccination rate efficiency among the six provinces wherein 272,839 people totally inoculated out of 595,410 target of 70 percent population.
The regional interagency task force led by DILG director Anthony Nuyda is urging the local government units to expedite the vaccination process in an effort to curtail the spread of coronavirus across the region.
The CHD-DOH Bicol reported the cumulative cases of Covid-19 from March 2020 to January 2022 a total of 50,452 with 5,151 active cases and 43,299 recoveries. As of January 14, there are 632 newly reported sick of Covid-19 and one death.
Camarines Sur has the highest cases with 242, followed by Masbate with 138; Albay with 101; Sorsogon, 86; Camarines Norte with 51 and Catanduanes with 12.(Raydes Barcia)