MANILA, Philippines — A single place could be dedicated to the treatment of people either suspected or confirmed infected with the coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19.
This was the proposal of presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo on Monday, as he expressed concern to the health workers in various hospitals being exposed to the virus.
“We are recommending that there should only be one place where we can put all those confirmed cases,” Panelo said in a press briefing.
“Ganun din ‘yung mga mino-monitor para maa-isolate natin lahat ‘yung mga pinagbibigyan natin ng pansin kung ito nga’y confirmed or hindi.”
(It would be the same for those being monitored so we could isolate all persons being given attention whether confirmed or not.)
“Ang problema kasi natin, the way things are developing, baka maubusan tayo ng hospital na paglalagyan. And not only that, we are exposing our health workers to the same infection,” he also said.
(Our problem with the way things are developing, we might run out of hospitals. And not only that, we are exposing our health workers to the same infection.)
Panelo continued: “Kung limitado lang, medyo maco-control natin. Right now, hindi eh. ‘Pag nawalan tayo ng health workers, may problema na tayo. We really have to do something for ourselves.”
(If it’s just limited, we could control it. Right now, we cannot. If we lose health workers, we have a problem. We really have to do something for ourselves.)
According to Panelo, this proposal would also be discussed during the meeting of President Rodrigo Duterte and the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Emerging Infectious Diseases.
In February, President Rodrigo Duterte raised the possibility of government taking over a private building should more people be infected with the virus.
But Duterte, at the time, said there was no need for such a measure.
Health officials have so far recorded 140 people infected with COVID-19, including 12 deaths.
COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus that first emerged in China’s city of Wuhan in Hubei province in late 2019.
The virus causes mild symptoms such as fever and cough for most people but can cause serious illness such as pneumonia for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems.
The Philippine government has also upgraded its alert on COVID-19 from Code Red Sublevel 1 to Code Red Sublevel 2, which is hoisted when there is evidence of community transmission and prevalence of cases beyond what the government can address.