LA TRINIDAD, BENGUET—Isolation centers for coronavirus patients in Benguet province have already reached full capacity, forcing local officials to seek help from neighboring Baguio City.
Gov. Melchor Diclas on Tuesday said some patients had opted for home quarantine due to the shortage of isolation wards in the district hospitals.
As of Tuesday, the province had registered 1,425 coronavirus infections with 853 active cases and 14 deaths. More than 800 of the cases came from the mining towns of Tuba and Itogon, which recorded cluster infections among workers of three mining companies.
Benguet General Hospital will now be forced to admit only symptomatic cases after all 40 beds dedicated to COVID-19 patients have been occupied, Diclas said.
He asked local health officials to postpone the mass testing for COVID-19, saying it had yielded results that were “not clinically significant.”
“We are very good at detection, but we are poor when it comes to isolation so it (mass testing) becomes useless,” he said, adding that mass testing should resume when more quarantine centers are made available.
The governor asked the National Task Force on COVID-19 and the Department of Health to provide additional isolation facilities in the province.
According to him, the Baguio government was tapped to convert a dormitory in the city to accommodate 80 patients. —KIMBERLIE QUITASOL