Northern Samar should not be placed under Alert Level 4 –provincial health officer

The provincial health officer of Northern Samar on Saturday contended that the province should not be placed under Alert Level 4 until the end of January, saying it was "adding insult to injury."

"Sa ngayon, to be honest, kami po ay nagulat noong itong aming probinsya ay ginawang Alert Level 4," said Northern Samar Provincial Health Officer Dr. Ninfa Caparroso-Kam at the Laging Handa briefing.

(Right now, to be honest, we were shocked when our province was placed under Alert Level 4.)

Citing statistics from their regional health office, Caparroso-Kam said their average daily attack rate (ADAR), or the incidence showing the average number of new cases in a period per 100,000 people, was far from the "critical" seven and higher.

According to Caparroso-Kam, Northern Samar's ADAR was only 3.25.

Further, the doubling of cases in an area needed to be greater than 200 for it to be placed under Alert Level 4. Caparroso-Kam said Northern Samar's doubling of COVID-19 cases in two weeks is ranging from only 84 to 100 cases.

However, she admitted that some of the province's health workers mistakenly included frontliners with mild symptoms at isolation facilities in the bed tracker count.

The Northern Samar Provincial Hospital had its highest number of admitted COVID-19 cases on January 17 with 81 - 18 health care workers in isolation facilities and 63 residents.

Caparroso-Kam said a province should have a bed utilization rate of 85% to 200% to be classified as under Alert Level 4. Northern Samar's authorized bed capacity was at 100%, but they were operating at almost 200%.

"So I don't know kung ano ang ginamit nilang denominator pero sana man lang vinalidate muna ito ng IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases) before kami ini-slap ng Level 4. Kasi it's affecting our economy," she said.

(So I don't know what denominator they used but I hope the IATF validated the matter first before they slapped us with a Level 4.)

Caparroso-Kam said that provincial government officials had met and consulted with their governor to appeal to the IATF to re-classify them to Alert Level 3.

GMA News Online had sought comment from the IATF, but task force representatives had yet to respond as of posting time. — DVM, GMA News