Christmas will be more meaningful for the residents of this Pampanga city as Mabalacat is already experiencing herd immunity since early December.
This was revealed by COVID-19 Response Integrated System (CRIS) Chief Implementer Dr. Jose Antonio Rivera citing the city surpassing the Department of Healthโs (DOH) 70% herd immunity threshold.
โWe have already achieved herd immunity. As an indication, we have been experiencing low to zero COVID-19 infections since the month of November. Labing-siyam (19) na araw po na wala tayong bagong kaso at halos recoveries po ang ating naitatala,โ said Dr. Rivera.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), โherd immunityโ or โpopulation immunityโ is achieved if a substantial proportion of a population has been vaccinated for this lowers the overall amount of virus able to spread in the whole population.
In his recent announcement, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Eduardo Aรฑo said that 23 highly-urbanized cities already achieved herd immunity having fully vaccinated 70% of their respective target population.
Mabalacat City, a component city, has already reached and surpassed DOHโs 70% target since November having attained the highest overall vaccine utilization rate of 95.7% in Central Luzon. The percentage translates to a total of 388,550 doses administered.
As of December 9, 2021, the city has already administered a cumulative total of 414,518 doses of COVID vaccines for both residents and non-residents. Of this number, the city administered 215,126 for the first dose, 196,850 for the second dose vaccination. The data also includes 11,503 non-resident vaccinees under the cityโs walk-in vaccination program and 3,713 booster shots for A1 to A2 priority sectors.
In consideration of Mabalacat Cityโs 70% herd immunity target population of 198,001, the city surpassed it at 108%.
In the wake of the new COVID-19 variant, Mayor Crisostomo Garbo said that the city will continue to focus on patient recovery, disease surveillance, and vaccination to prevent possible surges of infections and mortalities in the future. With the cityโs exemplary vaccine administration, Mayor Garbo said that Mabalaqueรฑos are ready for the impacts of the Omicron variant should it enter the Philippine shores.
On December 9, 2021, the Mabalacat City CRIS logged the cityโs 19th day of zero coronavirus infections since the month of November. Active cases in the city have also dipped to 3 accruing a 0.1% positivity percentage. Furthermore, the city hit 7,002 (96.8%) recoveries, to date.
