‘Most sophisticated’: New COVID-19 quarantine facility in Cebu City rises

CEBU CITY – A 200-bed quarantine facility in this city will be open to COVID-19 patients with no life-threatening symptoms.

Mayor Edgar Labella said the Cebu City Quarantine Facility at the North Reclamation Area is the “biggest and most sophisticated” to be built by a local government anywhere in the country.

To be installed in the facility is a negative pressure ventilation system, a common feature of quarantine facilities for highly infectious diseases, to block airborne transmission and prevent contaminated air from spreading outside the facility.

The mayor said the facility would have equipment similar to hospitals’, like respirators, which help patients breathe.

The Cebu City government on Thursday (April 23) received 20 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) ventilators, which help patients’ lungs pump air if their illness deteriorates into pneumonia, or infection of the lungs.

Five of the ventilators, which are expensive pieces of equipment that cost an average of P1.5 million each, would be deployed to the new quarantine facility while 10 would be taken to the Cebu City Medical Center.

Another five ventilators would be distributed to other government hospitals in the city.

The new quarantine facility costs around P100 million, which was taken from the P1 billion in emergency fund set aside by the city government for COVID-19 response.

As of Thursday (April 23), the entire Cebu Island has a total of 360 cases—330 in Cebu City, 3 in Cebu province, 18 in Lapu-Lapu City and nine in Mandaue City.

Edited by TSB