Elderly account for 60% of Cebu City COVID-19 deaths

CEBU, Philippines —  Around 60 percent of the total COVID-19 related deaths in Cebu City were seniors, the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) disclosed.

With the total confirmed positive cases of 22,791 from March 2020 to present, seniors (60-year-old and above) account for around 14 percent or 3,133 of the overall positive cases.

Of the total number of cases to date, 833 of them succumbed to the said disease, with 496 of them being senior citizens or 60 percent of the total deaths by far.

For this month alone, 11 of the 18 reported deaths were seniors.

Based on the initial studies conducted by the doctors under the EOC, senior citizens infected with the virus usually have comorbidities.

Experts said seniors with kidney and heart ailments are more prone to complications. This, however, still needs further investigation.

With this, EOC has encouraged all seniors in the city to get vaccinated against the coronavirus disease.

Of the 100,000 estimated seniors, 2,711 got vaccinated so far.

Citing a research, EOC said “all vaccines prevent severe symptoms, hospitalization and deaths”.

For those who have yet to register, one can enlist via pabakunata.com or through their respective barangays.

Vaccination vs COVID

Meanwhile, more than a hundred senior citizens in Consolacion town, Cebu have received their first dose of vaccine against COVID-17.

The town started the inoculation of seniors yesterday.

Consolacion has over 7,000 seniors.

The senior citizens belong to priority class A2. They are the second priority among population groups after frontline health workers.

As for the vaccination rollout in Mandaue City, 299 seniors, including those with comorbidities, were also inoculated yesterday.

The oldest senior vaccinated yesterday is 92 years old, said Vaccine board chairman Ernie Manatad.

The seniors are from barangays Subangdaku, Cabancalan and Tabok.

Manatad said the three were among the villages that completed their masterlisting.

He said the city has 1,180 doses of Sinovac vaccine intended for the first batch of seniors.

“We still have 700 remaining doses of vaccines. We will continue vaccinating Thursday and Friday,” Manatad said.

He added that the city government is still waiting for additional vaccines for seniors from the Department of Health-7.

Mandaue has over 24,000 senior citizens and about 60 percent of them have pre-registered for the vaccination.

On the other hand, in Lapu-Lapu City, Mayor Junard Chan said more than 500 senior citizens in the city were inoculated since Monday, April 19.

The city has three vaccination sites, namely, Gun-ob Elementary School, Agus covered gym and Allegiant Regional Care Hospitals. — Caecent No-ot Magsumbol, KQD (FREEMAN)