MANILA, PHILIPPINES — On Monday, the DOH (Department of Health) reported a three percent increase in the daily average of Covid-19 cases last week. The daily average from August 1 to 7 was 3,904 per day, but from August 8 to 14, the number went up to 4,001 daily.
Case bulletins in the recent week show that there were 28,008 new cases and 299 verified deaths. Of the latter, 98 deaths happened from August 1 to 14.
In the same time period, 101 cases were severe and critical infections. From the previous 772 of the previous week, the tally increased to 822, which is 9.6 percent of the total cases in the country.
Only 719 of the 2,571 beds in ICU (intensive care unit) are in use, which is 28 percent. Meanwhile, 6,781 out of the 21,968 non-ICU beds are being utilized, which is 30.9 percent.
The country has confirmed over 3.8 million cases and more than 61,000 fatalities since the start of 2020.
Of the country’s target population (78,100,578) to date, 72,107,090 (or 92.33 percent) have been vaccinated. This number includes 77.96 percent out of the 8,721,357 target senior citizens.
As of Sunday, August 14, only a total of 17,015,413 have received booster shots.
However, over 20 million out of the 134 million donated and procured Covid-19 vaccine doses were wasted due to contamination, having expired, and had been opened but not injected.
The country’s wastage is now at 8.42 percent, but this is still below the standard rate set by the WHO (World Health Organization) of ten percent or lower.
“There were also wastage due to natural disasters like Typhoon Odette (Rai), fire, earthquakes, also due to temperature controls like thawed vaccines but were not used and temperature excursions, and the presence of [particulate] matters or discoloration in vials of vaccines,” DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said.
Health Undersecretary Carol Tanio told the Senate committee on health and demography that as of August 12, a total of 20,660,354 COVID-19 vaccines have been wasted.
Of the expired jabs, six percent were donated, 22 percent were procured by local governments, and 40 percent were purchased by the private sector.
Senator Risa Hontiveros called for an inquiry on the wastage of Covid-19 jabs, “At this rate, by October, we will exceed the threshold of the WHO for acceptable wastage. So we might have accumulated vaccines faster than we could administer them.”
She added, “Nakapanghihinayang na parang patapon ang paggasta ng bilyong piso para dito. (It is regrettable that it seems like we are throwing away billions of pesos for this.) It seems that our vaccine program is leaking billions of pesos.” –WhatALife!/Zed
Also read: CdeO reported 30 new COVID-19 cases; active cases at 162
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