DOH urges cutting down delay in isolating COVID-19 cases

Shortening the period between the detection and isolation of a COVID-19 case can help bring down infections, the Department of Health (DOH) said Monday.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the national gap between detection and isolation of a COVID-19 case currently stands at around 6.3 days.

In Metro Manila, it takes 7.11 days before an infected person is isolated.

Vergeire said authorities should work to bring this figure down to 5.5 days, and eventually to just one to two days.

The National Economic and Development Authority previously said shortening the gap between detection and isolation to 5.5 days could “potentially” reduce infections by around 51%, according to epidemiological models. 

“Kung ma-improve pa natin itong seven and six days na tinitingnan natin sa ngayon, mas mabe-break natin ang chain of transmission, mas bababa ang kaso,” Vergeire said.

(If we can improve from the seven and six days [gap] that we are looking at now, we can break the chain of transmission and cases will go down further.)

“The ideal would be that detection to isolation is 24 to 48 hours. Hopefully, we can get to that para lalong bumagal ang kaso (so that cases will slow down even more),” she added.

The Philippines has 1,322,053 COVID-19 cases with 1,240,112 recoveries and 22,845 deaths as of Monday afternoon. 

Over 4.6 million individuals have been vaccinated as of June 8, still far from the government’s target of inoculating 50 million to 70 million people this year.—LDF, GMA News