Bacolod City – A total of 355,377 Negrenses, which is 19.47 percent of the target population, have already been fully inoculated as of November 7, with 465,926 others getting their first dose, or 25. 53 percent of the target, according to the Negros Occidental vaccination report released yesterday by Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz.
The provincial government is targeting 1,825,370 of its 2.6 million population of Negros Occidental to be vaccinated, in order to achieve herd immunity in the fight against COVID-19.
With these accomplishments, the provincial government has to vaccinate 1,359,444 more Negrenses to achieve the herd immunity.
The report of the Provincial Incident Management also showed that the number of COVID 19 active cases in Negros Occidental still on the downward trend, as it further dropped to 1,985 as of November 7, from its peak of more than 4,400 last month.
The Department of Health-Western Visayas earlier noted a lower vaccination turn out, compared to other provinces in the region.
It was blamed by the provincial officials of Negros Occidental to the lesser number vaccines received by the province from the national government, stressing also that all of them have been fully utilized immediately, upon receipt.
Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson noted that large volume of vaccines started to arrive in Negros Occidental, three weeks ago.
President Rodrigo Duterte earlier ordered the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to sanction local government units (LGUs) and local chief executives performing poorly in relation to their respective COVID-19) vaccination program.
This, after Duterte noted that there were “fault lines” in the government’s Covid-19 vaccination rollout, particularly in the deployment of jabs at the regional and provincial levels.
Lacson suggested that LGUs with poor vaccination records should be identified first, and solutions should be come up.
Only then, maybe, you can sanction if it’s not followed by LGUs, he added.
But right now, I don’t think it is right to sanction them, because nobody wants to delay it, he stressed.
There are reasons, why the National Capital Region, is almost 90 percent (vaccinated), Lacson also said.
The top LGU performers in terms of vaccination in Negros Occidental are La Carlota City, Silay City and Pulupandan, with Hinigaran as the lowest performer.
(Gilbert Bayoran via The Visayan Daily Star, photo courtesy of Bacolod City Public Information Office)