THE accelerated vaccination campaign in Cagayan de Oro City along with some parts of northern Mindanao resulted in the sustained decline of Covid-19 case admissions in Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NMMC), a top hospital official said.
“Based on our latest data (such as our epidemiological curve, mean positivity rate, and case doubling time) our situation is improving. We’re now receiving more general medicine or non-Covid-19 cases than (severe to critical) Covid-19 cases. Based on our health care critical care utilization, our bed and mechanical ventilators’ capacity are within the 30 percent range,” said Dr. Gina Itchon, NMMC research, and development department chief said late last week.
In last Friday afternoon’s City Hall press briefing, Dr. Itchon said their data as of Oct. 21 showed that NMMC’s Covid-19 bed, intensive care unit (ICU) bed, ward bed, isolation beds, and mechanical ventilators’ capacities are pegged at 30 percent, 36 percent, 29 percent, 31 percent, and 32 percent respectively.
“Our average daily attack rate is moderate risk is still going down (at 4.61 percent) but our two-week growth rate is low at negative 43 percent which means it isn’t rising,” Dr. Itchon said.
Dr. Itchon also pointed to NMMC’s mean positivity rate (number of positive results multiplied by 100 swabs daily) which went down to 9.48 percent marking the first time it went down to 10 percent since the onset of the pandemic last year. ‘From the highest so far this year at 51.70 percent for the Aug. 12-18 period, the positivity rate started (to go down substantially) to 16.82 percent or below 20 percent for the Sept. 30 to Oct. 6 period and went down to 13.68 percent from Oct.7 to Oct. 13,’ she said.
Dr. Itchon said she was happy that NMMC’s case doubling time is pegged at 6.9 percent from Oct. 14 to Oct. 20 or a few points close to the ideal one week to above one week period in between cases. She said if the public sustains this momentum, they are optimistic that the case doubling time will improve to above one week.
“What’s good is that as of Oct. 1-20, NMMC logged 148 Covid-19 cases or lower than the 487 total cases logged last September,” Dr. Itchon said.
Dr. Itchon said the improving Covid-19 situation in Cagayan de Oro City and the rest of northern Mindanao reflects the decline in cases experienced nationwide.
“The sustained reduction of Covid-19 cases is largely because of the accelerated vaccination campaign. We cannot possibly have achieved this if we relied solely on stringent compliance to minimum public health standards. All the vaccines do work and we are seeing that without vaccination, it would take us six months to lower our cases,” she said.
As of Oct. 22, Cagayan de Oro City Hall vaccinated half a million or 501,609 Kagay-anons of whom 208,288 received their second dose. Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno earlier said they are targeting to have Cagayan de Oro City reach herd immunity before Christmas. (Stephen Capillas of City Information Office)