Cagayan health worker dead; 30 infected with Covid after vaccination

By Raymund Catindig

TUGUEGARAO CITY — A medical frontliner died while 30 other health workers at the Cagayan Valley Medical Center (CVMC) in this city, who have been inoculated against Covid-19, have tested positive for the virus.
    The Dept. of Health-Cagayan Valley regional office said there was no reason to believe the death was caused by the vaccine.
    The fatality was inoculated on March 12.
    CVMC chief Glenn Matthew Baggao said those who tested positive for the virus are asymptomatic and isolated in the hospital’s quarantine facility.
    Baggao said the 30 others who were infected are among more than 1,500 CVMC employees who received the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine on March 7 and were set to get their second dose on April 5.
    Health experts have repeatedly assured the public that the vaccine cannot cause an infection after a health worker, who was immunized on March 5, died after a few days.
    The DOH regional office said it has received 31,980 doses of Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines, of which 21,419 had been administered.
    Medical frontliners are racing against time to complete their inoculation amid a surge in cases.
    The CVMC, Southern Isabela Medical Center in Santiago, Isabela and Region 2 Trauma and Medical Center in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya have reached 100 percent occupancy rate, according to the DOH.
    Hospitals in Laguna are almost full of Covid-19 patients, Gov. Ramil Hernandez said Wednesday.
    “Napupuno na po ‘yung ating mga hospitals, mga private po natin at mga government-owned,” Hernandez said in an interview over ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo.