Cebu City’s critical care hospital occupancy rate drops to 8.9 %

EOC deputy chief implementor Councilor Joel Garganera.

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City’s Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) situation continues to improve with the health care system finally feeling the improvement.

For the first time since the peak of the pandemic, the city’s critical care hospital occupancy rate has dropped to 8.9 percent, after weeks of continuous drops in new cases.

This means that out of 640 COVID-19 dedicated beds in private hospitals, only 57 are occupied.

It can be remembered that the city’s occupancy rate reached almost 50 percent during the second wave of cases early this year, but after four months, the city is experiencing its lowest rate yet.

Councilor Joel Garganera, the deputy chief implementor of the EOC said that this is a welcome development showing that the situation has finally eased the pressure off from the health care system.

“And for 3 days in a row, we are below 20% mark for our critical care occupancy and for the first time our 11 private hospitals register below 10% occupancy at 8.9% out of 640 beds only 57 are occupied.”

“Our health care facilities are in the pink of health, in fact, our Infectious Disease EOC Consultant Dr. Bryan Lim relayed to us in our morning huddle that he had only 2 Covid patients, a far cry when he had 80 patients during its peak sometime last year,” said Garganera.

The city currently has 604 active cases with 21 of these newly recorded on May 11, 2021.

Furthermore, the EOC reports that 30 barangays no longer reported transmission for the last 10 days and the city continues to record a positivity rate below 5 percent for 11 days already.

The EOC hopes that the people would continue to follow the health protocols so that the active cases will continue to drop.

They also encourage people to register for the vaccination program so that the city can achieve herd immunity, soon.  /rcg