THE Department of Health (DOH) downgraded Davao City's Covid-19 alert classification from Alert Level 4 to Alert Level 3 on Friday, August 13.
This is the second week DOH released its alert classification system, which aims to identify the severity of Covid-19 incidence in different areas in the Philippines.
Based on the recent alert classification, Davao City, along with Davao Occidental, and Davao Oriental are under Alert Level 3. Davao Oriental was previously labeled under Alert Level 2.
Davao de Oro, Davao del Norte, and Davao del Sur remained under Alert Level 2.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that alert levels have been assigned to each province, highly urbanized city, and independent component city based on Covid-19 case growth, hospital utilization rates, and the presence of the Delta variant.
Areas under Alert Level 4 are those with moderate to critical risk classification and more than 70 percent healthcare utilization regardless of the presence of the highly contagious Delta variant.
To address the rise in cases and high hospital utilization rates in these areas, Vergeire said the local government units must implement granular lockdowns and active case finding, with the possible use of rapid antigen test in areas with local Delta variant cases.
There is an urgent need to increase hospital beds, especially intensive care unit (ICU) beds in Level 2 and 3 hospitals, in these areas, Vergeire said.
The LGUs must also ensure that there are enough oxygen supplies, and severe and critical cases must be immediately and properly referred.
Vergeire said healthcare capacity issues must not only be addressed in the LGU level but in the regional and national level as well.
In areas under Alert Level 3, case counts are high and increasing, but healthcare utilization is manageable although increasing regardless of the presence of Delta variant.
LGUs must also enforce granular lockdowns, active case finding, decongest hospitals of mild and asymptomatic cases, increased Covid-19 beds to 30 percent of capacity and increase ICU beds for Covid-19 patients in Level 2 and 3 hospitals.
According to the DOH-Davao (DOH-Davao) regional status on available beds, the region's overall intensive care unit (ICU) beds are only 24 percent available, while isolation beds are 54.2 percent available. Ward beds are 40 percent available, while 54.3 percent of ventilators are still available.
As of August 11, Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) bed occupancy for Covid-19 patients remain under "critical level" after 89.13 of its ICU beds are occupied, while ward bed occupancy is at 85.01. In the previous days, SPMC's ICU bed occupancy reached 100 percent.
In preparation for the possible surge of Covid-19 patients brought about by the Delta variant, SPMC is set to open up its modular hospital on August 15.
Davao City Covid-19 Task Force spokesperson Dr. Michelle Schlosser said on Friday, August 13, that some ICU bed occupancy in private hospitals have also reached full occupancy.
But Schlosser said the city’s temporary treatment and monitoring facilities (TTMF) are still available. She has yet to disclose the current available beds.
Meanwhile, the region has already a total of nine confirmed Delta variant positive specimens. Out of the total, seven are local cases, one is a returning overseas Filipino, and one has yet to be disclosed. All the eight identified were already tagged as recovered. ( With reports from SunStar Philippines)