The Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) Bayanihan E-Konsulta has noted a spike in COVID-19 cases as they are now handling an average of 400 cases per day, a 300 percent increase from a month ago, pushing Vice President Leni Robredo to take on the graveyard shift.
Robredo was absent from her radio show on Sunday, August 22, leaving her chief of staff, OVP Undersecretary Philip Dy as a substitute.
“Ramdam na ramdam din namin ‘yung pag-increase ng cases doon sa aming (We can really feel the increase in cases in our) Bayanihan E-Konsulta free teleconsult project,” Dy told radioman Ely Saludar.
Since last week, the program has been taking on more than 400 cases per day, he said. This was a 300 percent increase from the average of 100 cases a day they were receiving in June and July.
The sudden surge in cases from a month ago caught the attention of Robredo, who Dy said monitors the platform from around 11 p.m. until the wee hours of the morning. She also made another call for medical and non-medical volunteers.
“Nakatutok na po ‘yan sa emergency thread namin tsaka sa LGU referral thread para kung meron talagang emergency na mangyari, kailangan i-facilitate agad sa ospital or itawag sa local government unit para rumesponde at makatugon dun sa pangangailangan ng pamilya o pasyente (She’s focused on our emergency thread and the LGU referral thread so if there’s really an emergency that has to be facilitated to a hospital or to a local government unit to respond to the nneeds of the family or patient),” he added.
READ: ‘We’re definitely feeling the surge,’ Robredo says as COVID-19 cases rise in E-Konsulta
Despite recording more than 12,000 cases per day for the past week, the Department of Health (DOH) refused to say that there is already a community transmission of the Delta variant of COVID-19. The variant is believed to be the driver of similar surges in Indonesia, Thailand, and other Southeast Asian nations.
As of Aug. 15, the Philippines has 807 cases of the Delta variant.
In a Facebook post, Robredo said the Bayanihan E-Konsulta’s page “is bursting with cases again.”
“We have been doing all we can but our biggest limitation is really (the) availability of hospital vacancies. Tonight, it happened again. We lost another patient while waiting for a hospital bed. Our list of patients awaiting hospital beds is getting longer and longer,” she added.
She accompanied her post with a screenshot of their emergency thread at the OVP. A message read that a patient died without receiving proper medical care at home because of the “lack of vacancies in nearby hospitals.”
One of the OVP’s staff said they should offer burial assistance. Robredo was seen replying to the thread with three sad emojis.
The vice president lamented that some members of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases are refusing to acknowledge the surge.
READ: DOH sees continuous increase in COVID-19 cases in next few days
“And then I just read online a statement from an IATF member saying we’re much better off now than we were in April because it’s now easier to get a hospital bed,” Robredo said.
The Bayanihan E-Konsulta was launched on April 7 to provide free medical consultation services to COVID and non-COVID patients in the National Capital Region (NCR), Cavite, Laguna, Bulacan, and Rizal.
Run mainly by volunteer doctors through a platform managed by the OVP, it seeks to decongest hospitals. Robredo’s office also sends a COVID care kit to patients who need to monitor their symptoms.