The One Hospital Command (OHC), the country’s Covid-19 referral center, has been receiving more than 1,100 calls per day since the last week of December 2021, a health official said Thursday.
During a televised public briefing, Health Undersecretary and treatment czar Leopoldo Vega said the OHC has logged 98 to 112 calls only per day from the first to the third week of December 2021.
“Kakaiba talaga ito dahil iyong September calls natin, on last wave, ay umabot na kami sa mga 780 to mga 800 calls (This is really strange because our September calls, on last wave [of cases], we reached 780 to 800 calls),” he added.
Vega disclosed about 60 percent of the calls are requests for assistance on home isolation or referral to isolation or quarantine facilities.
In September 2021, the calls received by the OHC were requests for hospital or intensive care unit referral and oxygen supply distribution.
“Ito ngayong January, kukonti na iyong referrals namin, nasa mga 15 percent iyong referrals namin (This January, we have few referrals, we only have 15 percent referrals) for the hospital and the intensive care unit services,” Vega said.
As of 4 p.m. Thursday, the country’s total tally of active Covid-19 cases rose to 237,387 after the Department of Health (DOH) logged 34,021 new infections, the highest single-day tally since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
Out of the active cases, 225,408 are mild, 2,881 are moderate, 7,332 are asymptomatic, 1,468 are severe, and 298 are critical.
On January 6, the DOH issued protocols on home isolation and quarantine of confirmed Covid-19 cases and Covid-19 probable with no, mild, or moderate symptoms to keep the healthcare systems from being overwhelmed.
Source: Philippines News Agency
