Naga adopts new approaches, prepares to exit from Covid-19

By Jason B. Neola

The continued decrease in Covid-19 cases and very low positivity, growth and hospital utilization rate in Naga City for the past several weeks prompted the city government to re-strategize its game plan against the disease that has yet to reach the endemic stage.

Mayor Nelson Legacion said that the city’s preparation to exit from the pandemic goes through with what other cities and regions across the country are doing even in some parts of the world.

An endemic disease is a disease that is always present in a certain population or region. Some of the most talked-about endemic diseases are flu, cough, and colds.

Legacion said that the city’s Covid-19 response will be more focus on addressing the disease not as pandemic but an endemic one that needs to be actively acted upon even in the barangay level. “This means that we have to see to it that all of us should gain immune protection from vaccination, a situation we want to see with the conduct of our “Naga Vax to the Max” campaign in the communities,” he said.

The ongoing “Naga Vax to the Max,” which started in the second week of January, this year, shows barangay health workers (BHWs) and volunteers as the main actors who compose the vaccination teams. The BHWs and volunteers underwent trainings to be able to capacitate them for the tasks, Legacion said.

Under such set-up, it is the LGU’s vax team and personnel who provide the barangay-based vaccinators with the supply of syringes, vaccines, and other items needed in the operations of the vaccination sites including assistance in times of emergency or urgent necessities.

NO COVID PATIENT These two school buildings at the Camarines Sur National High School Annex in Barangay Liboton serve as Naga City temporary quarantine and isolation facilities for Covid-19 patients. They have been unoccupied for the past several days after the HERTF allowed patients with very mild symptoms and manageable condition to undergo home isolation and quarantine. JBN/PIO POÑADO JR/CEPPIO

He said even the number of Covid-19 patients who got hospitalized is also going down. For several days now, it was also noticed that not a single person is undergoing quarantine or isolation in the facilities maintained by the city government at the Camarines Sur National High School Annex in Barangay Liboton.

As of Wednesday, Feb. 16, the city government recorded 14 cases under home quarantine and five on hospital care.

Legacion, who is the responsible officer of the Naga City Health Emergency Response Task Force (HERTF), said that in previous months, the hospital utilization rate of the Bicol Medical Center went to as high as 70 percent as compared to this week’s 10 percent.

The mayor also said that when it comes to cases of people infected with Covid-19, almost 98.5 percent of them are asymptomatic, if not experiencing only mild symptoms. “Seldom that we hear of patients having severe symptoms or even moderate or in critical condition.”

Naga City and all the Bicol provinces are now under Alert Level 2 starting Feb. 16.