822 Davao houses locked down

DAVAO CITY, Philippines — A total of 822 houses aside from a building and a compound in this city have been locked down due to a surge in COVID-19 cases.

Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio said the city government utilized 1,112 personnel to enforce the lockdown.

“This is the second week of the surge. Our active cases are 6,899 and still expected to climb as we are still a long way off to peak in this Omicron surge,” Carpio said.

The city is under Alert Level 3 until the end of the month.

Carpio said the city government would continue to implement the Prevent, Detect, Isolation, Treat, Reintegration or PDITR strategy to address the increase in cases.

She said contact tracing remains a challenge as contact tracers depend only on the honesty of the patients. The Safe Davao QR is not consistently used, she added.

Carpio said the city government has allowed home isolation as cases spiked.

However, she stressed that it is an option only for those with moderate to mild symptoms and those who can comply with the guidelines set by the Department of Health.

The Southern Philippines Medical Center, the main referral hospital for COVID patients in Davao region, said it would admit only severe cases.

Cases drop

Meanwhile, active cases in the Philippine National Police (PNP) dropped by 28 percent in the past week.

Data released yesterday showed that there are 2,730 infected personnel compared to 3,796 recorded last week.

The PNP logged 158 new cases on Monday. The death toll remains at 126.

Up to 217,616 PNP members have been fully vaccinated, 74,349 had their booster shots and 6,615 are waiting for their second dose.

At least 1,008 police personnel are still unvaccinated, 518 of them refusing to be inoculated without valid reasons and 490 citing medical conditions. – Emmanuel Tupas