Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said on Monday, April 5, that hospitals must be decongested first before lifting the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) in the National Capital Region (NCR)-plus bubble.
In a virtual briefing, Vergeire said hospital utilization must be at least 60 percent before considering they are on a "safe level." Current hospital occupation is at 78 to 80 percent.
Intensive care unit beds in the NCR is almost 100 percent.
"We need to bring that down so we can say that our healthcare system can manage," Vergeire said.
The health undersecretary pressed the need to strengthen the enforcement of the Prevent, Detect, Isolate, Treat, and Reintegrate (PDITR) strategy to contain the increase of new cases.
"We have set targets per week wherein we need to see all contacts traced within 24 hours and they need to get isolated within 24 hours. Also looking at the percentage of those mild and asymptomatic being treated in quarantine facilities and only those moderate and severe cases in the hospitals," Vergeire said.
"What would be most important really would be for us to look at the healthcare utilization. The health system should be able to manage and should be able to breathe, and should have this decongestion before we can say that we can easily lift the restrictions for this community quarantine," she added.
Vergeire also noted that the shift to a more relaxed quarantine classification should be gradual.
"It should not jump from ECQ to GCQ . We should do it gradually based on the assessment that we will do per week based on the IATF agreement," she added.