Taguig Mayor Lino Cayetano said the current hospitalization rate for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is very alarming as the number of confirmed cases has surged.
He said two private hospitals in the city -- St. Luke’s Medical Center-Global City and Medical City-Taguig -- which admit COVID-19 patients, are currently full, while the Taguig-Pateros District Hospital, which has 100 beds, is 60 to 70 percent occupied.
“When it comes to utilization of our public hospital, we are okay but in private hospitals, they are already full,” he told “The Source” on CNN Philippines.
Cayetano also said Taguig’s quarantine facility, which has 100 beds, is nearing full capacity.
“We want our quarantine facility to be full. It means that Taguig residents, if they get sick, prefer to recover in the quarantine facility. Before, it was hard to convince them to go to the quarantine facility. But now, they have realized that it is more contagious now. More people get infected in households. More people are utilizing our quarantine facilities,” he said.
He added, “We are continuing to increase the capacity of our quarantine facilities. It’s the hospitalization that we are really worried about. That is something we really need to address.”
Cayetano admitted that they became complacent when COVID-19 cases plateaued, saying, “Immediately when it jumped to 7,000, 8,000, immediately our hospitals faced problems. But I think, when we address the hospitalization, I think we can move after this. We know how to deal with the virus now. In the next two weeks, we need to be a little stricter. Let us be responsible. I know it will go down.”
Taguig is experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases. As of March 20, it had 173 active COVID-19 cases but last week, its active cases were at least 200 daily.