ROXAS City – Capiz province is on “enhanced monitoring” from June 5 to 11 due to rising coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections.
The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) came up with this during a virtual meeting with Gov. Esteban Evan Contreras yesterday, following the recommendation of the Screening and Recommendation Committee (SVC).
One of the reasons cited was the high healthcare utilization rate of the province.
Healthcare utilization rate refers to the number of intensive care units (ICU), isolation beds and ventilators currently in use in an area’s health and medical facilities.
Based on the June 5 data of the Department of Health (DOH), Capiz is a high risk area. It had an 80.14 percent healthcare utilization rate; 83.3 percent of its COVID beds and 33.33 percent of its medical ventilators were already utilized.
Capiz’s two-week case growth rate and average daily attack rate were also high.
Among the recommendations to address the high healthcare utilization rate were the following:
* additional ICU beds to accommodate severe cases of COVID-19
* assess recovering patients who can be transferred to temporary treatment and monitoring facilities (TTMF);
* trace all close contacts within 24 hours
* all suspect, probable and confirmed cases must undergo facility isolation or hospital admission if needed
* strengthen the Prevent, Detect, Isolate, Treat, and Reintegrate (PDITR) strategies and monitoring performance, particularly in decreasing the interval from case detection to isolation, probably within five days/PN
