(UPDATED) THE Davao City Government has requested the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to elevate the quarantine status of the city to modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) from June 5 to 30, 2021 "to allow a circuit breaker in the surge of patients inside hospitals."
The City Government said in an advisory on its official Facebook page on Wednesday, June 2, that they already forwarded their request to the IATF-Regional Task Force (IATF-RTF).
While waiting for the approval, the local government encouraged Dabawenyos to review the regulations for MECQ under Section 3 of the IATF Omnibus Guidelines dated May 20, 2021 and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Memorandum Circular 21-19 dated May 14, 2021.
Salient points of the guidelines include limiting the movement of all persons to accessing goods and establishments and for work in such establishments (Sec. 3, IATF Omnibus Guidelines dated May 20, 2021).
It also states that any person below 18 years old and over 65 years of age, persons with comorbidities and pregnant women shall be required to stay at home, except for obtaining essential goods and services (Sec. 3, IATF Omnibus Guidelines dated May 20, 2021).
The City Government has called on those affected by MECQ zero operational capacity to coordinate with the Trabaho Dabawenyo employment assistance at the City Mayor’s Office Special Project Office at Magsaysay Park.
The City added that all public transportation shall be permitted to operate.
"We need to help our frontliners by making sure that we stay home except for work or business," it said.
In her letter addressed to Undersecretary Epimaco Desing III of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and chairman of the IATF-EID Screening and Validation Committee, Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio presented the Covid-19 cases in the city to support her request to place the city under MECQ.
“As of May 31, 2021, we have a total of 1,665 active cases currently admitted at the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) and our Temporary Treatment and Monitoring Facilities and Isolation Facilities,” she said.
Duterte-Carpio said there were nearly a thousand cases reported from May 23-29, 2021, with the city recording its highest number of cases at 198 cases reported in a day on May 29 since the start of the pandemic.
Davao City later broke its own record after logging 338 new cases on Tuesday, June 1, 2021. With the newly-logged cases, the total Covid-19 in the city reached 17,337, while active cases jumped to 1,912.
DOH-Davao said that among the factors for the record-high number of new cases is the heightened surveillance and intensified testing.
The mayor was concerned that the beds at the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) are now at a critical utilization rate while the Intensive Care Units at SPMC and two private hospitals are already full.
President Rodrigo Duterte recently announced that Davao City will remain under general community quarantine (GCQ) from June 1 to 30, 2021.
Critical Utilization Rate
As of May 31, the SPMC reported that all of its 77 intensive care unit (ICU) beds have been fully occupied, while 293 out of the 312 ward beds are occupied.
City Health Office (CHO) Acting Head Dr. Ashley Lopez said the hospital remains to be under “critical” level due to the near occupancy of its critical care facility.
To support SPMC, private hospitals, namely, Davao Doctors Hospital, Metro Davao Medical And Research Center, and Brokenshire Hospital, have started catering Covid-19 patients.
Lopez said private hospitals were already noted to start catering Covid-19 severe and critical patients. Private hospitals were also mandated to cater at least 20 percent of their total bed capacities for Covid-19 patients.
He admitted, however, that not all hospitals have started to cater due to lack of facilities and manpower.
He said the city will be augmenting support to private hospitals.
Lopez said the city’s 16 TTMF with 1,300 beds are also getting overwhelmed.
With this, the city decided to open eight more TTMFs for patients with mild and asymptomatic cases.
‘Moderate risk’
With the current surge of cases, Lopez said in a radio interview on Wednesday that the city’s local government unit (LGU) classification is at “moderate risk.”
Lopez said the classification is based on two indicators: the low two-week growth rate and the Average Daily Attack Rate (Adar).
“We are both under medium. Pag duha ka medium, basing on these two indications, moderate risk ang atong LGU classification,” he said in an interview on 87.5 FM Davao City Disaster Radio.
From May 31 to June 5, eight barangays in the city are under “critical risk”. These are 9-A, 11-B, 24-C, 32-D, 33-D, Panacan, Riverside (Calinan), and San Antonio (Agdao).
Lopez said they expected that there would be more barangays that will be classified under critical risk as it is evident with the current surge of cases.
The official noted an uptick of cases beginning May this year after experiencing downtrend of cases from February to April this year. (With reports from CIO)