MANILA – The Department of Health will be shifting to a community-focused response, bringing down its resources to the barangay level to address the rising cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in the country.
In a message to reporters, the DOH said it has developed a "revitalized strategy in collaboration with the different medical societies".
"The DOH, together with other agencies and local government units will address the rise in cases at the root through stricter enforcement of localized lockdowns and primarily through the implementation of the Coordinated Operations to Defeat Epidemic (CODE)," the agency said.
The CODE is a patient- and community-focused response strategy with key elements incorporated from the Prevent-Detect-Isolate-Test-Treat strategy.
The key components of the CODE include:
-- Community engagement activities to promote preventive behaviors;
-- Active case finding via house-to-house symptom checks;
-- RT-PCR [reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction] testing for symptomatic patients; and
-- Applying Oplan Kalinga for those needing quarantine and isolation.
Earlier, different medical groups suggested that "medical community quarantine and not 'militarized' community quarantine must be implemented to address the rise in Covid-19 cases".
On Tuesday, the DOH logged another single-day record spike in Covid-19 cases with 6,352 new infections.
In its Covid-19 bulletin, the additional cases bring the country’s overall tally to 112,593.
The DOH also reported 240 new recoveries and 11 new deaths. These figures increased the number of recoveries to 66,049 and the number of deaths to 2,115. (PNA)
