[ad_1]
The Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) intensive care unit (ICU) for its Covid-19 patients was fully occupied days before the end of 2020.
According to SPMC’s daily Covid-19 statistics and graphs posted on its official Facebook page, the 30 ICU beds assigned to the hospital for Covid-19 patients were occupied from December 30, 2020 to Saturday, January 2. of 2021.
However, all of its 342 room beds from the same period are still at an average bed occupancy of 65 percent.
SunStar Davao reached out to Dr. Ricardo Audan for more details on the matter, but has not responded as of Sunday night.
From the end of September to October 2020, the hospital ICU and ward beds also reached full occupancy, which was attributed to the reduction of some quarantine restrictions in Davao city that caused an increase in cases of Covid-19, particularly in mid-October.
The mayor of the city of Davao, Sara Duterte-Carpio, immediately reimposed some of the city’s measures, such as a curfew, a liquor ban and specific regulation on mass gatherings.
The recent full occupancy of SPMC’s ICU beds came in the immediate aftermath of the Christmas celebration, where health officials have already warned of a possible spike in cases attributed to holiday gatherings.
Although the hospital has not issued a statement if this is in relation to the expected increase in cases, the Department of Health-Davao Region (DOH-Davao) projected an increase in cases due to the Christmas celebrations.
DOH-Davao Regional Surveillance and Epidemiology Unit, Dr. Cleo Fe Tabada, said in a virtual press Monday, December 28, that they received reports of people confirmed with positive coronavirus who had a history of attending group meetings during the holidays. .
He added that after tracing contacts, other members of the group were later discovered to have been infected by the positive individuals.
However, it did not reveal the areas where these cases were reported.
Meanwhile, on December 31, 2020, the entire Davao region recorded 215 cases.
Of these cases, 96 were from Davao City, 76 were from Davao del Norte, 14 were from Davao Oriental, 14 from Davao del Sur, 12 from Davao de Oro, and three from Davao Occidental.
[ad_2]
