Poor implementation of minimum health standards a cause of increase in COVID-19 cases – DOH
Published July 7, 2020, 7:29 PM
The poor implementation of the minimum health standards is one of the causes of the continued increase in the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in the Philippines, with 1,500 more infections reported on Tuesday, the Department of Health (DOH) said.
“We are not experiencing a second wave but an increase in the number of positive cases due to the increase in testing, and community transmission caused by the lack of implementation of minimum health standards,” said DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire in a press briefing.
Vergeire reported 1,540 additional confirmed cases, bringing the country’s cumulative case count to 47,873. The number of recoveries is at 12,386 as 201 more patients have recovered. The dreaded disease claimed six more lives, raising the death toll to 1,309.
The Health official said that they are expecting that the number of infections will continue to increase in the coming days— as some people tend to fail in following the minimum health standards.
“We expect na patuloy na tataas ang mga kaso as we open up, because there is more contact between people at marami pa rin ang nakakalimot sa ating minimum health protocols [We expect cases to continue to rise as we open up, because there is more contact between people and many still forget to observe our minimum health protocols],” said Vergeire.
“Maaring ang kailangan natin ay hindi ang pagbalik ng ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) kundi maging mas mahigpit sa pagpapatupad at pagsunod sa ating mga health protocols [Probably, we do not need to be under the ECQ again, but rather the strict implementation and observance of our health protocols],” she added.
Vergeire, meanwhile, noted that the spike in cases “has been gradual and our health system is able to cope with the increasing number of cases.”
“This is reflected in our indicators as of July 5, our case doubling time is still at 7.9 days. This means that it takes more than a week for the number of cases to double and we have enough resources to address the current needs,” she said.
Vergeire said that they are intensifying their contact tracing efforts in some barangays in the National Capital Region and in Cebu City, where they observe clustering of cases.
“Due to this, the DOH together with DILG (Department of Interior and Local Government) and the concerned LGU (local government unit) has intensified contact tracing efforts and isolation protocols to contain the identified clusters,” said Vergeire.
