The UP-PGH COVID-19 ward (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
MANILA, Philippines — No COVID-19 patient was admitted at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) in the last two days, the hospital’s spokesperson said Friday as the country sees a decline in new daily coronavirus cases.
Dr. Jonas Del Rosario said the PGH, the country’s biggest COVID-19 referral facility, currently houses only 54 patients, the least in more than a year.
PGH has allocated 350 beds for COVID-19 patients during the previous surge of infections.
“One good news is I was told [that] for the last two days, we have not admitted anybody for COVID. Our numbers are continuously going down,” he told ABS-CBN News Channel’s Headstart.
Facade of the UP – Philippine General Hospital (Image from the PGH website)
“Double digit numbers are really rare occurrence in PGH but now we are really going to the 50s, and who knows maybe in the next few days or weeks, we will be down to 20s. That is good news because we can now open more, open our hospital to non-COVID patients,” he added.
Del Rosario said the PGH previously had four wards for COVID-19 patients.
“Now we have trimmed it down. We were able to close the three COVID wards and open it to non-COVID patients. That’s really a big boost,” he noted.
“We are catering to our usual patients, those with heart problems, kidney problems, pulmonary problems, a big chunk of those with cancer, a lot of kids who now can come in again to get admitted. We are getting the regular patients that we usually get before the COVID pandemic,” the hospital official added.
Del Rosario attributed the decrease in hospital admissions to the high vaccination rate in Metro Manila.
In November, the government reported that 94 percent of Metro Manila’s target population have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Based on the COVID-19 tracker of the Department of Health (DOH), Metro Manila currently has 3,434 active and 15,188 nationwide.
On Thursday, the DOH said 564 new cases were logged, including 104 in Metro Manila.
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