Baguio shuts down 3 isolation units as COVID cases drop

RECOVERY SITE A health-care worker assists a COVID-19 patient inside an isolation unit at Baguio Teachers’ Camp in this photo taken on Jan. 25. —NEIL CLARK ONGCHANGCO

BAGUIO CITY—At least three major isolation units in the city will be closed by the end of this month following a steady drop in the number of COVID-19 cases here, officials said on Thursday.

Dr. Rowena Galpo, city health officer, said the improving COVID-19 situation in the city has led to a lower medical care utilization rate in public and private hospitals in the city.

Among those scheduled for closure are the 102-bed Laurel Dorm 2 inside the Teachers’ Camp, the 30-bed Ferionni apartment on T. Alonzo Street and the Eurotel Hotel near the city hall building, Galpo said.

In a statement, Galpo said shutting down three of the five key isolation units here would help the city government save on costs and maximize the use of available health-care personnel.

Vaccine rollout

Some of the personnel at these isolation sites will be deployed to help facilitate the vaccination rollout for children ages 5 to 11, while others will be tapped to man triage areas for tourists and augment the city’s team of contact tracers, she said.

The 350-bed community isolation unit based at the former Sto. Niño hospital and the 12-bed central triage located inside the compound of the Baguio Convention Center will remain operational, Galpo said.

Data from the City Health Services Office shows that the bed occupancy rate in local public and private hospitals dropped to 42 percent, while the occupancy rate among the isolation units dropped to less than 10 percent.

As of Thursday, the number of active COVID-19 cases here further decreased to 216 from 249 the previous day after recording 35 new recoveries and three new infections. Since the pandemic struck in 2020, Baguio recorded 41,351 COVID-19 cases.

Data also shows that 277,172 residents out of the targeted 281,000 adult population are fully inoculated while 88,124 adults have received booster shots.

Tourism influx

Now under the more lenient alert level no. 2, the city is bracing for more tourists with the resumption of the Baguio Flower Festival in March and the Holy Week break in April.

The number of leisure travelers entering the summer capital steadily increased this month as the city contained the surge of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19, said city tourism operations supervisor Aloysius Mapalo on Wednesday.

Baguio has tallied 23,100 visitors arriving between Valentine’s Day to Feb. 20 alone. The number showed an increase from 8,063 arrivals between Jan. 31 and Feb. 5; and 15,901 between Feb. 5 and Feb. 13.

The city saw its highest tourism influx for the first time during the Yuletide season following the first two years of the pandemic, with 39,955 guests on Christmas week last year and 39,629 on the week leading to New Year’s Day. —ALLAN MACATUNO AND VINCENT CABREZA

gsg