Davao City Mayor Inday Sara Duterte, through Executive Order (EO) No. 55 Series 2021, has approved home isolation for COVID-19 cases during a surge effective October 1, 2021.
The mayor cited President Rodrigo Duterte’s Presidential Proclamation 1218, dated September 10, 2021, which extended the state of calamity in the country until September 12, 2022.
She also cited the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Memorandum Circular No. 2020-101 dated July 17, 2020, which provided the guidelines for home isolation of asymptomatic and mild cases of COVID-19 and the Department of Health Davao Center for Health Development Advisory No. 11 dated August 31, 2021, reiterating DILG’s memo with the region’s healthcare utilization rate reaching critical risk level.
Mayor Duterte said, “There is a surge of cases in Davao City and the emergence of new COVID-19 variants, particularly the Delta variant.”
The current number of beds in Temporary Treatment and Monitoring Facilities (TTMFs) and isolation hospitals, according to her, cannot accommodate the current number of active cases of COVID-19 in Davao City.
Section 1 of EO 55 states that home isolation for confirmed cases is allowed only for asymptomatic (individuals who are not experiencing any symptoms), mild cases (individuals with mild symptoms, e.g., loss of smell and/or taste, and other symptoms of influenza-like illnesses (IUs), as well as with stable vital signs, e.g., 95-99% oxygen saturation, normal blood pressure and blood sugar levels, does not belong to the vulnerable population (below 18 years old and above 60 years old and pregnant women) and has no comorbidity.
The mayor mandates that the medical doctor in the COVID-19 Cluster Clinic shall inform cases of their positive result, and assess their classification if they can qualify for home isolation.
The line list of cases from the COVID-19 Cluster Clinic shall be given to the district focal persons of the Contact Tracing Cluster to be distributed to ground contact tracers to verify if such positive case has a separate bedroom, separate bathroom with toilet and sink, a well-ventilated room, and no vulnerable household member with comorbidity (malignancy, diabetes mellitus, bronchial asthma, on high dose steroids, on chemotherapy treatment, with chronic kidney disease on hemodialysis, post-transplant, with HIV/AIDS, senior citizen, or pregnant).
EO 55 also orders ground contact tracers to endorse supporting documents, e.g., pictures and videos, to the COVID-19 Cluster Clinic for the approval of home isolation for cases in their districts. The medical doctor in the COVID-19 Cluster Clinic, in turn, shall endorse the list of cases approved for home isolation to the Patient Monitoring and Evaluation Cluster for daily monitoring through telemedicine.
The mayor, meanwhile, shall declare if there is a surge (when home isolations shall be allowed), when the surge is over (when isolations shall be restricted to TTMFs), or when situations arise for the need to allow home isolation with the recommendation of the city health officer.
In a previous 87.5 Davao City Disaster Radio (DCDR) Special Hours program interview, the mayor said the health group of the Davao COVID-19 Task Force approves COVID-19 positive cases that can be isolated at home.
The health group spearheads the testing, tracing, isolation, and quarantining.CIO
