More than 85 percent of Baguio City’s senior citizens have been fully vaccinated against the Covid-19.
As of Sept. 27, a total of 27,579 or 85.9 percent of the 32,108 registered senior citizens at the bakuna.baguio.gov.ph website have been fully inoculated per data from the City Health Services Office and the Management Information Technology Division (MITD).
Vaccination coverage for senior citizens could reach more than 90 percent once the 2,228 partially vaccinated senior citizens receive their second dose in the coming weeks.
The CHSO reported 2,301 or 7.2 percent remain unvaccinated who were tracked to be residing in barangays Irisan (190), Camp 7 (116), Bakakeng Norte Sur (90), Loakan Proper (88), Bakakeng Central (82), Asin Road (78), Pinget (62), Sto. Tomas Proper (61), San Luis Village (60), Dontogan (59), Pinsao Proper (57), and Pacdal (51).
Other barangays have less than 50 unvaccinated senior citizens, while the MITD recorded 174 senior citizens residing outside Baguio City who registered in the city’s official vaccination website.
Earlier, Mayor Benjamin B. Magalong sought the assistance of barangay officials to help the city government in locating and convincing senior citizens in their jurisdiction to take their jabs as soon as possible.
The city abides by the Department of Health’s prioritization of vaccinating vulnerable groups to avoid severe Covid-19 complications, hospitalization, and death.
CHSO data reveals that of the 453 deaths recorded since the start of the vaccination last March 2 up to Sept. 29, there are 19 who were either fully or partially vaccinated while 434 were unvaccinated. Majority of those who died are unvaccinated senior citizens and those with co-morbidities.
A computation on vaccine effectiveness in the city showed unvaccinated persons are 18 times more likely to die of Covid-19 complications than fully vaccinated individuals.
The World Health Organization said while vaccines help lower the chances of developing severe symptoms or dying, some people could still die due to factors such as age risks and co-morbidities. – Jessa Samidan
