BAGUIO City is in “a good place” in terms of COVID-19 incidence and its capacity to respond to incidence of the disease, Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong said on Wednesday.
According to the mayor, the city has now seen a total of some 12,200 plus cases of COVID-19 overall.
However, the number of active cases in the city currently only number 612, down from previous highs with case incidence above 1,000.
Magalong said that there is an upward trend in case incidence currently, but the trend is not as severe as in past months.
“We’re looking at an upward, gradual trend unlike before, like two months ago, when we had a surge of cases due to a combination of several factors where we would have a daily number of cases reaching 105, 108, even 118 once,” Magalong said.
At the same time, healthcare utilization rate among the city’s facilities has gone down as well, from previous highs of a critical 88 percent utilization rate, down to 68 percent, and the figure continues to go down, according to the mayor.
Meanwhile, local government-managed isolation facilities are now logging in at a low 38 percent occupancy rate, with some 415 beds currently available for use.
Magalong has expressed optimism over the figures and the situation, claiming that the city is currently in a good place with regards to COVID-19 response.
“We are in a good situation, and hopefully it will keep going down, especially as we are expecting another aggressive community testing next week,” Magalong said.
Magalong has also committed to the acquisition of reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test kits not just for the city but also for neighboring Cordillera territories.
The city in cooperation with the Office of Civil Defense has also procured some 10,000 personal protective equipment (PPEs) for the region’s various healthcare workers to utilize.