ILOILO City – The request of Mayor Jerry Treñas to escalate the city’s quarantine status to modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) is awaiting the approval of the National Inter-Agency Task Force (NIATF).
This, after the Regional IATF, in a meeting with Treñas yesterday, concurred to endorse this city’s request to the national task force.
As of this writing, the regional task force was drafting their resolution.
“Ang aton daily cases nagsaka gid halin sang May 1 asta subong and ang aton daily average is 48. Ikaduha, ang kalabanan nga hospitals puno na,” said Treñas.
The city mayor has prepared an Executive Order placing the entire city under MECQ supposedly effective immediately until May 31, 2021 but this was put on hold pending the approval of the NIATF.
The city is currently under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ).
In seeking for a higher quarantine status, Treñas pointed out that Iloilo City has been categorized under the “high risk” epidemic level as of May 15, ripe for a higher and stricter quarantine classification to curb the increase in coronavirus cases.
From April, the City Health Office logged a 209.1 percent increase in the daily average rate of cases this month.
As of May 13, the Department of Health (DOH) recorded a two-week growth rate (2WGR) of 80 percent, and an average daily attack rate per 100,000 population of 5.33.
Meanwhile, based on the Risk Classification Table, Iloilo City’s growth in cases in the recent one to two weeks as against three to four weeks is 164 percent, while its average daily attack rate (per 100,000 population) is 8.08 percent in the recent one to two weeks which is higher than the 3.06 percent in previous three to four weeks.
Treñas also noted that this city logged a total of 6,946 cases as of May 15, 2021 with a mortality doubling time of 41.82.
Of the total cumulative cases, 473 are still active cases, 179 died and 6,294 recovered.
The city mayor also cited the increase in the healthcare utilization rate and hospital occupancy rate in the city.
He said the surge in pandemic infections in the recent weeks overwhelmed hospitals.
In fact, one of the 10 hospitals – two government and eight private – operating here recorded an outbreak involving 28 confirmed cases among staff, including its medical director.
“Due to the rising number of infected personnel and after reaching its full bed capacity, majority of hospitals temporarily stopped the admission of patients due to the continued surge in cases. Emergency room isolation units for emergency and urgent care designated for COVID cases are overflowing with patients waiting to be admitted,” Treñas explained.
Likewise, the city mayor also noted that neighboring provinces such as Antique, Capiz and Guimaras were similarly experiencing an “unprecedented and drastic increase” in COVID- 19 cases and thus were forced to refer their critically ill patients to Iloilo City for more advanced healthcare and also because their own facilities already reached full capacity.
“Gauging on the increasing number of admissions in such a short span of time, placing Iloilo City under MECQ is critical in lowering COVID transmissions in the locality which will eventually decongest our hospitals experiencing critical (Intensive Care Unit) occupancy rates,” the city mayor emphasized./PN