CEBU City Councilor Joel Garganera, Emergency Operations Center (EOC) chief implementer, has confirmed that 132 frontliners assigned in 31 hospitals, medical clinics, facilities, and laboratories across Metro Cebu have been infected with Covid-19 as the cases continue to rise.
Garganera also said an entire department of a hospital was on lockdown due to the staff’s exposure to the virus.
Garganera said the infected workers are doctors, nurses, nursing assistants, medical technologists, laboratory technicians and paramedics who are now being isolated at their workplace together with their close contacts.
He assured hospitals already know how to contain the spread of the virus in their workforce with some hospitals having their own isolation wards.
“I believe the transmission happens not in the course of their work but in their private moments with other people or workers, especially during mealtimes when they take off their masks to eat and then start chatting with others at the table,” Garganera said in a mix of Cebuano and English.
Garganera said the infection of several health workers is an added burden to the Cebu City Government as hospitals and isolation facilities now lack medical personnel due to a mass resignation which occurred when Covid-19 cases started to increase.
“That’s a big dent to our medical force. It is really a problem,” Garganera said.
Garganera said 95 percent of the infected medical frontliners were either asymptomatic or mild cases. Of the 132, all were vaccinated except for one.
Meanwhile, Cebu City reported that as of July 24 to August 2, Barangay Guadalupe had the highest number of reported Covid cases (233), followed by Tisa (126), Talamban (121), Lahug (100), and Camputhaw (82).
The critical care occupancy rate of 11 private hospitals in Cebu City was at 56.6 percent (369 beds were occupied and 283 were vacant), while four public hospitals reported a critical occupancy rate of 66.7 percent (236 beds were occupied were 118 vacant).
In Lapu-Lapu City, the head of its Covid response team Nagiel Bañacia said while none of their medical responders are currently sick with Covid, three of his staff reported experiencing symptoms last week.
Bañacia said the symptoms were gone after five days but the afflicted personnel remained in isolation.
He said all their medical frontliners had been vaccinated.