FEWER people infected with Covid-19 are getting confined or spending time in Cagayan de Oro’s hospitals despite the spike in the number of infections in the city, and local officials attributed this to the city’s relatively high vaccination rate.
The Department of Health in Northern Mindanao said 467,181 people in Cagayan de Oro have been inoculated as of Jan. 11, representing 81.3 percent of the 574,491 residents in the city.
“The new cases now are milder and recoveries are faster,” Dr. Teodoro Yu, City Health Office medical officer said during the daily briefer on Monday.
Yu said the mass vaccination enabled hospitals to discharge many Covid-19 patients faster given that many of the vaccinated who get confined experience milder symptoms, unlike in 2021—particularly from July to August, when the city’s hospital system was overstretched and nearly collapsed due to a surge in the number of infections.
The City Health Office counted 124 new Covid-19 infections over the weekend.
Of the newly infected, only 32 people, or 25.8 percent were admitted to the state-run Northern Mindanao Medical Center, the region’s primary referral hospital for Covid-19 cases.
Yu said the majority of the cases were either asymptomatic or have milder symptoms, and those taken for observation were brought to quarantine facilities and a new hospital built by City Hall in Barangay San Simon here.
“This is the difference between now and that of last year’s upsurge. The vaccines are protecting the residents,” Mayor Oscar Moreno said.
Moreno, however, cautioned those inoculated against complacency, saying the vaccines don’t promise a cure but merely increase the people’s fighting chances against the virus.
The city government has continued to ramp up the local Covid-19 vaccination rollout in the hope that more would opt to get inoculated and receive their booster shots.
Cagayan de Oro logged its first Covid-related death this year on Saturday. The patient was a 45-year-old man who had been vaccinated but had comorbidities.
Among the new Covid-19 cases in the city is a nurse who infected her fellow medical front liners in a private hospital.
Moreno said the city government has been preparing its medical teams and facilities in case the number of Covid-19 cases continues to increase in the following weeks.
He said an entire floor at the city hall-run JR Borja Memorial General Hospital with a 60-bed capacity would be opened and the Department of Public Works and Highways would set up a 100-bed modular facility at the new hospital in Barangay San Simon this week.
