BY NOREEN JAZUL
The Department of Health (DoH) said the country is “slowly” decongesting hospitals but urged the public not to lower their guard even though there are already good signs in the government’s battle against the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
In an interview with ANC, DoH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the critical care utilization in the National Capital Region (NCR) has gone down to 67 percent from a high of 80 percent.
“We are slowly decongesting hospitals and more patients who really need to be admitted are being admitted,” Vergeire said.
Vergeire said the country is at 46 percent utilization of its critical care components.
“The ideal number would be that the utilization is less than 30 percent. If you have less than 30 percent of these critical care components, then you can say that the health system is being able to manage the situation,” she said.
Vergeire said the country’s health system capacity is one of the factors that the DoH is looking at to determine whether the country has flattened the curve.
“The very objective of flattening the curve is for us to spread the number of cases over time so that our health system will not be overwhelmed and I think that is what we have done so far,” she said.
Vergeire, however, said the DoH still needs to further study the country’s COVID-19 situation for a longer period of time to determine whether the curve has really flattened.
“It is yet to be determined based on the specific factors and we need to study it carefully,” she said.
Vergeire said the DoH can say that the curve has flattened if the critical care utilization is already lower than the warning zone, and the number of cases continues to decrease.
The health official urged the public to be “very vigilant,” and keep practicing minimum health standards.
“We are somehow decongesting our hospitals and we are reporting a decrease in the number of cases but we cannot be complacent at this point,” she said.
