GIVING notice to the increase in Covid-19 cases that indicate a “start of the peak” of the ongoing pandemic, orivate hospitals have started gearing up for more admissions amidst rising number of new and resurgent Covid cases in the Narional Capital Region (NCR) and other highly urbanized centers across the country.
In a statement, Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines (PHAPi) president Dr. Jose De Grano asured the citizenry that medical facilities are being prepared for more hospital admissions due to the surge in infections and new cases of Covid-19.
Although most coronavirus patients in the country only exhibit mild symptoms, De Grano, who is also medical director of the San Juan Doctors Hospital, did not discount the possibility that the health care system may be overwhelmed as hospitals have also been seeing an increase in non-Covid admissions.
“The symptoms of new variants are not severe, so hospital occupancy, as far as Covid is concerned, is not yet problematic. What we are having now is an increase in non-Covid cases which are presently occupying most of our beds,” De Grano enthused.
“We are prepared to accommodate many patients, but the problem is when it comes to a point that there will be a shortage of health workers. Private hospitals and other facilities are regularly coordinating with local government units for the admission of Covid-19 patients,” he added.
According to health undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, the number of cases of Covid infections nationwide in the past week rose by about 60 to 70 percent, which she likened to a trend the country saw in September 2021 due to a Delta-driven surge in infections.
“We can see that this is the start of the peak in the number of cases. The whole country recorded around 2,458 new cases last week, and that is about a 60 percent to 70 percent increase in the number of cases,” Vergeire pointed out even as she noted that infections in Metro Manila have doubled in recent days.
Based on monitoring data from the Department of Health (DoH), an uptick in cases was also observed in the Ilocos region, Cagayan Valley, Calabarzon (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon), Mimaropa (Occidental and Oriental Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan), Western Visayas and Northern Mindanao.
The health department reiterated its advise to the public to avoid complacency and obey minimum hear safety protocols, particularly the mandate of wearing face masks, and likewise gave warning that Covid cases may “continuously rise in the next couple of weeks,” but said the current trend does not qualify as a pandemic surge yet.
“We try to avoid using this term from the previous increase in cases because this has caused a lot of confusion among the public. Experts have attributed (the increase) to heightened mobility, detection of more transmissible Covid-19 variants and the waning immunity of the public,” the agency cited.
Over 3.69 million individuals have so far contracted coronavirus infection nationwide, of which 60,000 people have died.
