CdO opens new treatment facility as COVID-19 cases surge

As local COVID-19 cases here surge, the city government opened another temporary treatment and monitoring facility (TTMF) to house those who test positive for and have the symptoms of the coronavirus disease.

As of Friday, September 25, this city now has 655 cases of COVID-19, 222 of which were active cases. Locally transmitted cases climbed to 334 (51.24%) while infections from returning overseas Filipinos and locally stranded individuals (ROF/LSI ) were at 321 (48.76%).

The city’s death toll stood at 30 – 29 fatalities were from local transmissions while one was from an LSI. There are 386 recorded recoveries from the virus.

Mayor Oscar Moreno said: “We and have instituted localized containment zones where there are positive cases to prevent the movement of the people.”

Morena said that these containment zones would help stop the spread of the virus, instead of citywide lockdowns that would be detrimental to the city’s economy.

The new TTMF was the 7th for the city. This does not include that city isolation units (CIUs) for quarantined ROFs, LSIs and close contacts of local cases.

Data showed that across Northern Mindanao, the number of local cases was now at 1,223 or almost half (48.72%) of the total regional cases. Local transmission was 2,510 or 51.28% of the total cases.

Moreno said that the surge in local cases was alarming, “This is already dangerous,” Moreno added.

City health office chief, Dr Lorraine Nery, said that 17 cases were admitted while 2 COVID-19 patients died in the last two days at the Northern Mindanao Medical Center, the region’s apex and coronavirus disease referral hospital.

Dr Gina Itchon, head of NMMC Research Center, said that the epidemic curve in the region of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, showed continued growth of case admissions.

“Epidemic positivity rate is now high at 13.04, the cut off of that should have been only 12%. This shows the rise in NMMC,” Itchon said.

Itchon said that in August 2020, there were only 35 cases admitted in the hospital but from September 1 to 26 there are now 111 admissions. Since March 2020, NMMC has taken in 179 COVID-19 cases.

Moreno said that the new TTMF was an additional response to the threat of the virus. “Ideally, we don’t want to establish more facilities to house positive cases.”

NMMC spokesperson Dr. Julius Bernard Rocha said that the new TTMF would NMMC focus on attending to cases which really needed medical interventions.

“This is a big help for us at NMMC as we can focus to patients that needs medical intervention such as medical ventilators. The TTMF functions as an infirmary that attends to patients that are not in need of medical intervention,” Rocha said. – Rappler.com