Fortifying Baguio’s new normal recovery plan

 CITY HALL BEAT 

 Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY -- The business sector will play a key role in fortifying the city’s economic recovery plan for the new normal.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong said involving businesses in charting the city’s economic prospects is important because they are the “engine toward recovery” and it is the obligation of the city government to “create an enabling environment” for them.
    “We will engage them and ask them what they need from the city government to create an enabling environment.  This will make sure that their and our visions and plans are all aligned,” he said.
    The mayor said the city’s recovery and resiliency plan conceptualized in the early stages of the pandemic guides the city in balancing it way between health and economy following the “hammer and dance” principle.
    To continue the transition to the new normal phase, he said the city will continue to seek ways to balance by strengthening health protocols while opening more businesses in a calibrated way.  
    The mayor said this year, the recovery thrust is also focused on the implementation of various strategic projects which he said are expected to generate thousands of employment and catalyze the economic revival.
    “Kailangan mabilis ang action pagdating sa economic recovery,” he said.
    “We might take off by March so we have to be ready with our activities like the Baguio Flower Festival, PMA alumni homecoming and others which although low key should also be made enticing,” the mayor added.
    The mayor earlier expressed confidence that 2022 will be banner year for the city to showcase its recovery from the health crisis.
    He said the city is set to implement the following priority development projects that it had worked on in the last three years:
    The sports complex at the Baguio Athletic Bowl which includes the rehabilitation of tennis court, outdoor archery range, swimming pool bleachers and office building, comfort rooms, coffee shop and storage areas and mini-conference room; construction of athletes’ quarters and isolation facility and outdoor facilities for wall climbing and skate park;
    Development of Wright Park, Bayan Park; Eco-Park development and multi-level greenhouse at Botanical Garden; Green Walks projects and sidewalk rehabilitation; digital transformation center; second phase arboretum; Irisan barangay hall; rehabilitation of City Hall multi-purpose hall and gym.
    Lined up under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) are the city market development; inter-modal transport facility; development of abattoir with cold storage facility; Mines View Park glass walk; cable car and elevated monorail; smart city mobility system.
    One priority project being worked out is the sewerage system rehabilitation scheduled for bidding this year.
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Mayor Magalong urged the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases to lower the city’s Covid-19 Alert level status to level 2 in view of the improving situation.
    The mayor said the city’s case reproduction number had been on a steep downtrend after peaking last Jan. 3.
    “Our case reproduction number (Rt) went above 1.0 starting Dec. 23 and we were able to lower it back below 1.0 on Jan 21 or after 29 days.  (For Delta it took us 1 month and 2 days).  Today is our 12th day with an Rt below 1.0.  I am confident it will go down further,” the mayor said.
    “From a high of 693 cases a day (7 day moving average), we are now down to 141.  This is based on onset of symptoms.      Looking at the trend, it will continue to be on a downhill,” he added.
    He said that all other analytical graphs and data (ADAR, weekly growth rate, 2-week infection growth rate, positivity rate, vaccination rate, HCUR, occupancy rate in LGU-managed Isolation and Quarantine facilities) reinforce  the city’s assessment that cases are going down.
    The analytics are being done in collaboration with the University of the Philippines Baguio.
     “Omicron is undoubtedly the dominant variant but we still have Delta based on the PGC data released in December.  This probably accounts for some of the fatalities this month,” the mayor said.
     City Health Officer Dr. Rowena Galpo in her report to the Management Committee on Feb. 2  said the city’s epidemic risk level has gone down to moderate risk based on the average daily attack rate and the two-week growth rate as of Feb. 1.
    The daily case average dropped to 334 during week Jan. 23-29 from 637 during Jan. 16-22 while recoveries while the daily recovery average increased to 560 from 419.  Death average slight decreased from 23 to 19.
     The case positivity rate also decreased to 36.15 percent from the previous week’s 45.7 percent.  The highest positivity rate reached by the city during this peak was at 48 percent from Jan. 9-15.
     The weekly infection growth rate is now 0.71 percent or less than 1 which meant that transmission has started to decrease.  This went as high as 7.71 on Jan. 2-8 and 6.9 on Jan. 9-15.
    The average daily attack rate (ADAR) plunged to 74/100,000 population from 98.1/100,000 and the two-week growth rate decreased to -29 percent from 187 percent.
    The daily average test was 417 in the past two weeks.
    Hospital care utilization rate went down to 63.72 percent from 68.7 percent while isolation facility bed occupancy further decreased to 30.14 percent from 69.95 percent.