Bicol’s COVID-19 cases continue to climb

LEGAZPI CITY––The Bicol region has been facing a continuous surge in COVID-19 cases, logging 645 new infections on Thursday, Sept. 16, the highest one-day tally since the onset of the pandemic in March last year, the Department of Health (DOH) said on Friday.

Dr. Aurora Deluro, DOH Regional Epidemiologist chief, said in a news briefing that half of the new infections were reported in Camarines Sur with 340 cases.

Albay came next with 98, followed by Sorsogon (78), Masbate (77), Camarines Norte (40), and Catanduanes (10). Two other cases involved transients.

Bicol’s surge was a cause for concern as the region has logged 7,712 new cases in just 16 days or an average of 370 infections per day since the start of September.

The number brought the COVID-19 infections in the region to 31,275 since the pandemic started last year, of whom 1,021 had died of the disease.

Of these recorded cases, 134 were variants of concern, including the highly contagious Delta strain.

Owing to the continuing spike in COVID cases in the region, the Bicol Regional Training and Teaching Hospital (BRTTH), the main COVID-19 referral hospital in Albay, was converted into an exclusive COVID-19 hospital effective last Wednesday.

Dr. Eric Raymond Raborar, BRTTH chief, said in a press statement that the tertiary hospital had adopted a “Surge Contingency Plan” making the hospital an admission and treatment facility exclusively for COVID-19 patients in critical and serious condition.

Raborar said patients confirmed as critical and serious cases would be admitted, while those with moderate and mild conditions would be referred to other public and private hospitals in the province that caters to COVID cases.

Under the plan, non-COVID-19 patients seeking admission to the hospital would be referred to other government hospitals, health centers, or lying-in clinics for treatment.

These facilities included the Legazpi City Hospital, Josefina Belmonte Duran Albay Provincial Hospital in Ligao City, and Dr. Lorenzon P. Ziga Memorial District Hospital in Tabaco City.

The DOH, since the start of the pandemic, has designated three government hospitals in Bicol as COVID-19 referral facilities, namely, the BRTTH in Legazpi City, the Bicol Medical Center in Naga City (Camarines Sur), and the Bicol Sanitarium in Cabusao town in Camarines Sur.