As of July 4, the DOH-6 reported that of the 1.4 million adults in Negros Occidental eligible for vaccination, only 933,682 were inoculated or only 65.31 percent with 99,315 of them or about seven percent have received booster shots.
There are also 136,788 senior citizens out of 269,602 have received their jabs or 50.74 percent with only 21,923 of them or 8. 13 percent had their booster shots, the line agency added.
To address the issue, the provincial government already conducted house-to-house vaccination but still the inoculation turn-out remains low, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Ernell Tumimbang lamented.
Tumimbang admitted that advocacy is one of the things they are lacking, not just for senior citizens but for their family members as well.
“Some senior citizens won’t submit to vaccination saying they are just staying at home anyway… Still, they need it because they might have companions who go out and could be virus carriers,” he stressed.
Tumimbang added that there are people who refused to be vaccinated thinking that everything now is already normal.
Although the new cases in the province are not in the double digits based on the reports submitted by various laboratories, he noted.
The doctor also said that those who are fully vaccinated and manifested symptoms usually do not undergo rerse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test anymore.
“They would rather stay at home and quarantine for five days until the symptoms subsides. There are no more patients in the quarantine facilities anymore, too,” Tumimbang said.
Meanwhile, the provincial government is now monitoring the number of new cases in the nearby province of Iloilo and areas from Metro Manila before deciding on the closure of borders.
Tumimbang said hopefully the number of new cases in these areas will no longer continue to climb.