Quezon Medical Center | PHOTO: Official Quezon Medical Center facebook page
LUCENA CITY – The steady rise of new COVID-19 cases in Quezon has prompted the biggest public hospital in the province to prepare its wards for the surge of infected patients.
Dr. Rolando Padre, director of Quezon Medical Center (QMC) located in this city, said they have already closed three of the four wards dedicated to COVID-19 patients when the number of active virus carriers dropped down late last year.
“The original COVID-19 ward is the only one open but the other three wards are on standby,” he explained.
Padre disclosed that they plan to reopen two as regular wards for patients. “The plan has been deferred,” he said.
As of January 3, QMC has nine COVID-19 patients indicating a slow rise of infections that require hospitalization.
”Around the third week of December, we only had one COVID-19 patient and it lasted for a while,” Padre recalled.
The Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO) in its 5 p.m. bulletin on Monday reported 15 new COVID-19 cases across the province, the highest-single day tally since Nov. 5 last year.
Dolores town listed five new COVID-19 patients after having been COVID-19 free since December 6.
The IPHO also reported that the towns of Lucban, Tagkawayan, Mauban and Tiaong have two new cases each while Guinayangan and General Luna have one new infected patient each.
The tally for the day listed two recovered COVID-19 patients in Sariayat town and zero fatality.
The alarming rise of new cases as a possible result of increased holiday mobility has consequently brought the number of active COVID-19 infections to 46 as of January 3.
The infected patients have been placed in several hospitals in the province, local government isolation centers while some are under home quarantine.
On December 22, the IPHO listed only nine active COVID-19 cases, the lowest single-day tally in recent months of 2021.
The IPHO recorded zero COVID-19 cases on December 1, 11, 12, 15, 25, 26, and 27.
From December 22 to 27, only six of the 41 local governments in the province have active COVID-19 cases in their respective localities.
But on January 3, the number of municipalities with active virus carriers jumped to 19, topped by Sariaya with 10 active COVID-19 cases.
Quezon recorded 27,877 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic struck in 2020, with 26,350 recoveries and 1,481 fatalities.
Quezon province and Lucena City will remain under Alert Level 2 until January 15, 2022.