The trend of Covid-19 cases in Benguet has gone down for the past weeks but the aggressive vaccination drive is still being sustained to reach out to the unvaccinated individuals.
Gov. Melchor Diclas said personnel of the Provincial Health Office vaccination team were activated and are going around the 13 municipalities to help in the vaccination effort. Counseling is being extended to those who are vaccine-hesitant, especially in the far-flung areas.
A counseling desk was set up at the Capitol for employees who are still hesitant to get vaccinated.
“Hopefully, when they see their neighbors who are at first hesitant but get vaccinated, it will convince them also to get vaccinated,” Diclas said.
The province has posted a full vaccination rate of 57.37 percent representing 196,466 individuals, which is still below the 70 percent target population.
The province is waiting for the guidelines from the Department of the Interior and Local Government on the mapping out of the population per barangay to determine the areas with vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.
As of Feb. 3, the province has a total of 2,520 active cases, 835 deaths, and 23,649 recoveries with total confirmed cases of 27,004.
Provincial Health Officer Meliarazon Dulay said most of the transmissions recorded are in workplaces and social gatherings.
“We keep on reminding about the minimum public health safety protocols but we observe that these are still not being followed like improper wearing of masks or some do not wear masks and violate social distancing,” Dulay said.
Dulay said there are 15 confirmed cases of the Omicron variant detected in the province. –Ofelia C. Empian
April 26, 2024
