'ALMOST FULL'

DOH: COVID-19 hospital admissions up in 6 NCR areas

The Department of Health (DOH) is monitoring hospitals in six Metro Manila areas due to increasing COVID-19 admissions, Health officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said Thursday.

At a press conference, Vergeire said these areas are Pasig City, Muntinlupa City, Malabon City, Makati City, Navotas City, and Caloocan City.

Vergeire said that while the hospital utilization rate in the country is below 50%, the National Capital Region (NCR) and 13 of its cities are now at moderate risk for COVID-19.

This means that their hospital admissions due to COVID-19 are above 50% but are less than 70%.

The only NCR cities that have not yet surpassed the 50% threshold in hospital admissions due to COVID-19 are Malabon, Navotas, Caloocan, and Valenzuela.

“If you look at our healthcare utilization, nasa less than 70% naman ang mga admissions natin sa ating mga wards. ‘Yun nga lang, syempre, lumagpas na sa 50%, kaya kino-closely monitor natin,” Vergeire said.

(If you look at our healthcare utilization, our ward admissions are less than 70%. It's just that it has already exceeded 50%, so we are closely monitoring it.)

In a separate radio interview, Vergeire said they have met with local government units and hospitals to address the matter.

“Last week, we met with our NCR local government and hospitals dahil pinapalipat ho namin ang mga mild and asymptomatic palabas ng ospital para magluwag ang kanilang mga ospital (to move the mild and asymptomatic patients outside the hospitals to make more space),” she added.

The DOH said Wednesday the NCR logged the highest infections in two weeks with 13,984 cases.

A total of 7,446 beds in the country were also occupied, while 21,210 were vacant as the bed occupancy slightly increased to 26% as of Monday, September 26, according to DOH data.

Vergeire said that they keep on monitoring the hospital admissions in the country amid the rising COVID-19 infections again.

She, however, pointed out that the severe and critical admissions in the country are currently at a “minimum level.”

In its Monday report, the DOH said 790 severe and critical cases were admitted in hospitals due to COVID-19 as of September 25. This was 11% of the total COVID-19 admissions.

Of the 17,891 new cases recorded from September 19 to 25, there were two individuals tagged as new severe or critical cases. DOH said this was only 0.01% of the new cases reported for the week. — KBK/RSJ, GMA News