MANILA - Marikina City is "overwhelmed" by the quick rise in COVID-19 cases but it is now employing "reverse isolation" to help stop this, Mayor Marcelino Teodoro said Friday.

The city had 112 COVID-19 cases at the start of the year and about 277 as March began, but its latest count showed 1,486 infections, said Teodoro. This is the highest reported number of cases in Marikina since the pandemic started, he said.

"We could see that it has increased almost tenfold, the number that we have prior the start of the month. We are being overwhelmed and we’re struggling to do aggressive and proactive contact tracing, isolation," he told ANC's Headstart.

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Marikina City had 2 quarantine facilities with a total 500-bed capacity, but this is no longer sufficient for the residents who have COVID-19. Teodoro said the local government had to do "reverse isolation" because "there's family clustering happening now." Instead of bringing the positive patients to quarantine facilities, they take out the individuals who test negative.

"Yung protocol na binigay ng DOH (Deparment of Health) dati, it’s not applicable at this point in time that we’re experiencing a surge in cases," he said.

(The protocols set by the DOH before, it's not applicable at this point in time that we're experiencing a surge in cases.)

"Hindi na namin kayang gumawa pa ng facility ngayon dahil ia-accredit pa ito ng DOH...We need to be innovative and creative at this point in time, so we decided, in consultation with our barangay captains, to do reverse isolation," he said.

(We can't build another facility now because that will still have to be accredited by the DOH. We need to be innovative and creative at this point in time, so we decided, in consultation with our barangay captains, to do reverse isolation.)

The individuals who test negative, considered close contacts of the infected, are isolated in the barangay multipurpose halls or in the venues the city used as evacuation centers for its residents during typhoons.

The Philippines on Thursday set a new record-high in its daily COVID-19 case additions, with 8,773 new coronavirus infections. It was the 8th straight day that new cases were over 5,000.

There are now a total of 693,048 cases, with 99,891 of them still active. The death toll stands at 13,095 and the recoveries at 580,062.

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