With eight days remaining this month, deaths caused by Covid-19 has breached the 100 mark on September 22 and after mayor Benjamin Magalong said that daily death is now five or six.
With the five fatalities on Wednesday, the total deaths caused by Covid-19 logged in the city this month is now 101 topping the 82 set during the April surge.
“We are now averaging five or six deaths this month,” Magalong grimly said during the Ugnayan with Baguio media at the Baguio City Hall multi-purpose hall Wednesday.
Although there are only 20 confirmed cases linked to the Delta variant, Magalong said that the 4,846 confirmed cases are traced to the most contagious and deadly iteration of the virus.
Baguio logged the most deaths last September 15 with 12 breaking the high of 10 the previous day. Last September 11, when Baguio recorded the highest single day new cases of 411, seven lost their lives.
“As I said earlier, the worst is yet to come. We’re going to be hit hard. True enough we are experiencing it,” Magalong said as he added that the city may see more new cases and deaths in the next one and a half months.
“There is no downtrend in the next weeks. We do not foresee it, but maybe in the next one and half months,” the mayor said as he made the plea for people to stay home.
“Please, please, if you have no important thing to do outside your residence, just stay at home,” he reiterated.
Magalong said that they have imposed more restrictions, the imposition of liquor ban which is expected to be extended after September 25, dine in at restaurant cut down to 30 percent and religious gatherings cut down to 20 percent as well as stricter border control even within the Baguio-La Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba-Tublay, or BLISTT, area.
“We already came out with an agreement with the BLISTT mayors to impose border control. Only essential travels are allowed,” said Magalong.
The agreement, announced by Itogon mayor Victorio Palangdan on Facebook Tuesday night, would now require non-formal employees like construction workers to secure authorization from their barangay to be allowed entry to a neighboring municipality.
“We will beef up checkpoints,” said Palangdan as the pandemic has cut down his mobility including visiting the wakes of constituents who died from the virus. “I’m sorry if I can’t visit your dead love ones, but then this pandemic prevents me from going,” he said.
Magalong, likewise, said the vaccination efforts had been doubled with record number of jabbed the past weeks.
Last week, the city was able to give 30,000 doses as the city now expects to jab 50 percent of the target population this week.
Magalong added that they expect to vaccinate 90 to 95 percent of the target population by December.
