BAGUIO CITY – The city is continuing to increase its capacity for quarantine and isolation of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients, and has added to the central isolation facilities of a hospital and private accommodation facilities.
This was disclosed by City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, who said the increase in the city’s isolation capabilities was meant to prepare it for any surge in COVID-19 cases not only in the city, but also from neighboring municipalities of Benguet province.
Magalong said the capacity of the city’s central isolation unit now was increased from the previous 95 to 233 aside from the combined 228-bed capacity of the Roxas Hall and Hernandez Hall at the Baguio Teachers Camp.
He said, the additional quarantine and isolation facilities of the city included the 80-bed V Dorm I, the 53-bed V Dorm II and the 60-bed Ferioni apartments, all located along Teodoro Alonzo Street.
Earlier, Magalong allowed the use of the city’s available isolation and quarantine facilities for COVID-19 cases from Benguet following reports that the province’s existing facilities were already full because of the outbreak of COVID cases in Itogon and Tuba over the past weeks.
Aside from this, he also sourced out the test kits used in the mass testing in several towns in Benguet over the past several weeks to help increase the number of tests conducted to ascertain the percentage of the population infected with the deadly virus. The tests could also serve as basis for adopting appropriate prevention strategies to prevent the further spread of the same in the various localities around the city.
At present, the city has already performed more than 70,000 reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and newly 7,000 antigen tests over the past several months, representing more than 18 percent of the city’s population.
City Administrator Bonifacio dela Peña disclosed the city was aiming to increase the bed capacity of the central isolation unit to 300, or as much as 400, by the middle of this month although the contractor has until the middle of December to complete the rehabilitation and improvement of the facility.
He stated the city was closely monitoring the ongoing rehabilitation and improvement works in the centralized isolation unit to make available isolation beds once there will be another surge in COVID-19 cases, not only in the city, but also in the neighboring towns of La Trinidad, Itogon, Tuba, Sablan and Tublay.