Bacolod mayor asks IATF to downgrade city’s alert level to 3

BACOLOD CITY – Mayor Evelio Leonardia announced on Sunday, October 31, that he has asked the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to downgrade Bacolod City’s alert level 4 status to alert level 3 effective Monday, November 1.

Leonardia, in a letter to Health Secretary Franciso Duque III, IATF chairman, Friday, October 29, said there is a significant reduction of COVID-19 cases in the city to reasonably loosen the restrictions in the city.

Under the COVID-19 alert level system, Level 4 refers to areas where case counts are high or increasing, and where the total bed and intensive care unit utilization (ICU) rate is high.

The Department of Health (DOH) in Western Visayas showed that the COVID-19 cases in Bacolod City have been decreasing in the past two weeks.

The health care capacity in all tertiary hospitals in Bacolod City is 69 percent with only half of the patients from Bacolod City and the rest from other local government units in Negros Occidental.

ICU utilization rate is 55.56 percent, which also includes patients from other LGUs.

“Isolation facility accommodation has decreased significantly to only 19.66 percent,” Leonardia said.

Bacolod City currently has 954 active COVID-19 cases.

Based on the DOH data, Bacolod City has the second highest percentage of fully vaccinated population in the region at 42.28 percent and 12 percent who are partially vaccinated.

Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson, on the other hand, has issued an executive order placing Negros Occidental under Alert Level 2 from November 1 to 14.