50% of Manila’s Covid patients recover – Isko

FIFTY percent of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases in Manila had recovered, the city health department reported on Sunday as it tallied 701 recoveries last week.

The recoveries for the period of June 27 to July 3 brought the total recovery count to 1,382 from 681.

Mayor Francisco Domagoso attributed the recoveries to “aggressive testing as well as to the city’s health infrastructure.”

As of Sunday, Manila had conducted more than 15,000 confirmatory reverse transcriptase polyamerase chain reaction (RTPCR) swab tests and 158,000 rapid antibody tests — all for free.

“Although it’s very expensive to conduct PCR swab tests — it costs P5,000 to P8,000 each test — we still see to it that every Manileño gets it for free,” the mayor said.

He added that Manila is the “first and only local government” in the country that had its own infectious disease center “prior to the pandemic.”

Domagoso was referring to the Manila Infectious Disease Control Center with a 171- bed capacity and caters to the confirmed carriers of the virus.

The city also has 12 quarantine facilities with a 500- bed capacity scattered throughout Manila to tend to suspected and probable cases.

While the recoveries surpassed the active cases, Manila still has the most number of active cases in the National Capital Region with 1,240 cases as of July 3, surpassing Quezon City, which had 1,245 as of Sunday morning.

Manila’s health department expects the active cases to swell after 31 villages in five districts emerged from a 48- hour lockdown on Sunday.

Throughout the 48-hour lockdown the city tested 8,018 patients, 165 of whom were grouped as probable cases and will further be subjected to the confirmatory RT-PCR test.