DAVAO City Health Office (CHO) Acting Head Dr. Ashley Lopez said the city’s Covid-19 cases remain in a "plateau" despite its intensified surveillance and expanded testing.
Lopez said the city was expecting a massive increase of active cases after Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio issued three executive orders (EO) that aim to detect more Covid-19 patients within the community.
“We were expecting changes sa atong (in our) Covid[-19] cases, but fortunately in general, na-maintain nato (we were able to maintain it), we’re in a plateau wherein atong cases wala man ingon nisaka, pero wala puy mga (our cases have not significantly increased, but it also did not have a) remarkable or significant decrease. So na-maintain nato atong (we were able to maintain our) daily average cases since we have implemented this following executive orders by our city mayor,” the health official said in an interview on 87.5 FM Davao City Disaster Radio.
The mayor issued EO 18 for the heightened surveillance and response of Covid-19 in Davao City. The EO allows the local government unit to expand its testing and contact tracing capabilities to manage the Covid-19 situation in the city.
Under the EO, the City will test and monitor those with influenza-like illness (ILI), which is defined by the World Health Organization as an acute respiratory infection with a measured fever of more than or equal to 38 degrees Celsius, cough, and with onset within the last 10 days.
Another is EO 20 wherein F1 contacts are those first-generation contacts of an RT-PCR confirmed Covid-19 positive case, while F2 contacts are those second-generation contacts of an RT-PCR confirmed Covid-19 case (close contacts of F1), and F3 contacts are those third-generation contacts of an RT-PCR confirmed Covid-19 positive case (close contacts of F2).
And recently is the EO 22, wherein the City will be providing free Covid-19 swab testing for all public utility vehicle and delivery service drivers such as taxi drivers, van drivers, air conditioned and non-air conditioned jeepney drivers, habal-habal or motorcycle drivers, tricycle drivers, bus drivers, other drivers of public ground transport vehicles, and motorcycle drivers of food and online item delivery services (i.e. Grab, foodpanda, Shopee, Lazada, etc.)
Southern Philippines Medical Center's (SPMC) hospital utilization rate also remains low or below 50 percent.
"Naa ray pipila ka adlaw na musaka ang (There are days that there is an increase in the utilization of) ICU (intensive care unit) [beds], but wala man gyud siya ingon na-overwhelm (it hasn’t been overwhelmed yet). Because of this very important factor, we were able to control and prevent deaths from our Covid-19 cases," said Lopez. (RGL)