Cordillera: 844 Covid deaths, 45,131 cases

‘Delta Variant could hit hard in next two weeks’ 

BAGUIO CITY – The Covid-19 Delta Variant will hit hard, authorities said, even as the Cordillera had total of 45,131 Covid-19 cases with 1,374 active; 42,903 recoveries and 844 deaths as of August 10.
    There were two deaths each in Baguio City and Benguet due to Covid-19 on August 10, according to a Philippine Information Agency report.
    The report said the region had 210 recoveries: 85 in Apayao; Baguio City, 24; Benguet, 61; Ifugao, 5; Kalinga, 31 and four in Mountain Province.
    There were 48 new cases with two in Abra; Apayao, 1;Baguio City, 22, Benguet, 11; Ifugao, 7, Kalinga, 2: and Mountain Province with three.
    Apayao will be under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) with Baguio City under general community quarantine from August 16 to 31.
    The rest of the Cordillera will be under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ).
    This, as City mayor Benjamin Magalong warned the Delta variant could hit this Summer Capital “hard in the next two week or anytime soon” even as he said the city government is mapping out contingency measures to respond to this eventuality.
    He asked residents' cooperation by exercising precautions and observing health and safety protocols inside and outside their homes and workplaces.
    "Let us prepare. We're going to get hit, and we're going to get hit hard. We have laid out contingency measures, but it will be helpful if every one of us will do our part," the mayor said in separate messages last week.
    According to Magalong, he expects it to be a very difficult time for the city, judging from what has been happening in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand and now in the cities of Cagayan de Oro, Cebu and Laoag.
    He said Baguio City was proactive in its preparations and did its best to cover all aspects, including imposing restrictions on the city's borders, on mass gatherings and on the movement of vulnerable age groups.
    "But we cannot prevent it. We can only delay it for us to be able to put in place all the systems although we have been preparing for this more than two months ago. But there are still a lot of things to do," the mayor added.
    He said administrators and managers should be ready to reduce their manpower to 30 percent once the spike in the cases starts.  Establishments were also urged to intensify implementation of public health standards and precautionary measures.
     In the past weeks, the city had experienced a downward trend in its cases even with its sustained testing and contact tracing capacities but the mayor warned that this could change drastically and even be worse than the previous surge the city experienced last March and April when the Alpha variant struck.
     “Our situation is this could just be the lull before the storm so let’s be prepared,” he said.
    The Delta variant is said to be 60 percent more transmissible than the previous variants and has the capacity to infect a person in seconds and to linger more in the air.  It can also cause more severe symptoms especially for unvaccinated persons.
    This, as the Baguio city government and the Cordillera Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council are increasing the bed capacities of the existing isolation units here in preparation for a possible surge in coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases due to the Delta variant.
    Mayor Magalong, in an interview, said they hope to bring the number of beds initially to 1,025, and later on further increase it to 1,300.
    He said at present, the Baguio City isolation unit at the former Santo Niño Hospital has 360 beds which would be added with 150.
    The P20 million earlier allotted for the construction of an additional isolation facility would instead be used for the repairs in an available wing of the facility and for the purchase of additional beds and supplies to allow more Covid-19 patients to be accommodated, he said.
    The Baguio City Community Isolation Unit was furnished with equipment last April when the city experienced a surge in cases to accommodate the "step-down" patients from the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC) to allow the latter to accommodate the severe and critical Covid-19 cases and prevent exhaustion of its health system.
    The step-down cases were those who were mild or asymptomatic coronavirus-positive patients undergoing treatments such as dialysis.
    Meanwhile, the city government has again requested the Office of Civil Defense and the CDRRMC for funds for the reuse of Eurotel Hotel's 60 beds and the Ferioni Apartments' 10 beds which were earlier rented out by the city for isolation of Covid-19 patients.
    Aside from the Baguio City Community Isolation Unit, the city's other existing isolation facilities are at the Baguio Teacher's Camp and Baguio Convention Center. – With reports from Aileen P. Refuerzo and Liza Galao