Manila Mayor Isko Moreno Domagoso announced a policy shift in the city’s utilization of hospital beds for Covid-19 patients amid the Omicron variant surge that saw the biggest number of infections in a single day at more than 33,000. READ:
The six Manila district hospitals are: Gat Andres Bonifacio Memorial Hospital , Ospital ng Tondo , Justice Abad Santos Medical Center , Ospital ng Sampaloc , Sta. Ana Hospital , the New Ospital ng Maynila . The seventh is the Manila Covid-19 Field Hospital with 344-bed capacity.
Moreno said the purpose of the policy is for an efficient utilization of resources amid the expected volume of Covid infection, as well as to keep hospitals open for other patients experiencing other ailments other than Covid-19. Additionally, Moreno said people in vaccination facilities and those awaiting results for their RT-PCR test may also experience a slowness in the pace of vaccination and the reporting of results because many frontliners have also been infected by the highly-transmissible Omicron variant.Moreno assured that as far as the City of Manila is concerned, “there is much resources that are still available.
“Under Resolution 289, the deadline for the filing of business permit is now until March 31,” Moreno said. He said extending the deadline was necessary to prevent the influx of local traders who wanted to beat the original January 20 deadline to avoid incurring penalties.