The Palace on Tuesday said the country is nearing its peak daily increase in coronavirus infections in August last year—and might surpass it soon based on projections by the OCTA Research Group.
OCTA raised its estimates of new COVID-19 cases from 8,000 a day to 11,000 a day by the end of March, as the reproduction rate of the coronavirus rose to 2.03, up from 1.9, a research fellow at the group, Guido David, said.
The reproduction rate refers to the number of people who can be infected by a patient.
But presidential spokesman Harry Roque fended off suggestions that the country is starting all over again when it comes to the way it is handling the pandemic.
“We’re not back to square one,” Roque said, taking issue with a statement made by Senator Joel Villanueva.
Villanueva had earlier said the government was only taking action when the virus had already spread.
"A spike is happening now. We are nearing the peak that we saw last August. We can even exceed this peak if we fail to bring down COVID-19 cases,” Roque said.
But the spokesman, who himself has contracted the disease and is in isolation, said the government was “doing well” in containing COVID-19.
He said public cooperation has also helped President Rodrigo Duterte and the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) limit the spread of the coronavirus.
Roque noted that the country now has better facilities to accommodate COVID-19 patients.
The Philippines reached a peak of 6,958 cases in a day last August 10, and Duterte expressed his concern over it on Monday, when 5,404 cases were recorded — the fourth straight day cases went over 5,000.
On Tuesday, the Department of Health logged 4,437 new COVID-19 cases, bringing total infections to 631,320. There were 11 new deaths and 116 patient recoveries.
Guido said the current number of active infections — 57,736, comprising 9.1 percent of total cases — is considered the highest since Oct. 3 last year and may breach 60,000 on Wednesday, OCTA’s David said.
Talking to ANC's Headstart, David said the outbreak started in Pasay, Malabon, and Navotas but has spread to many areas of Metro Manila, which are now seeing their cases rising.
"Most areas in NCR are now having an increase and many areas are nearing the levels that you saw last August," David said.
Provinces near the National Capital Region, such as Rizal, Cavite, and Bulacan, are also seeing a rise in their cases. In Cebu City, where cases had been going down, David said they are now seeing a slight uptick.
He attributed the rise in cases to increased mobility and decreased compliance with health standards, such as social distancing and the wearing of masks and face shields.
"More people outdoors are not complying with guidelines or not completely complying with them. More social gatherings, I believe, are occurring," he said.
He said the rise in cases could also be attributed in part to the presence of new coronavirus variants.
Despite the spike in cases, the national president of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) Mayor Chavit Singson opposed setting stricter travel limits.
Singson said allowing people to go to the provinces will prevent Metro Manila from becoming overcrowded, as was the case during the lockdown, when people could not leave the National Capital Region.
In his province, Singson said they have already eased their control at the borders. He said they just advise travelers to undergo quarantine at home once they arrive in the province.
Singson said the best practice of COVID-free municipalities is to conduct information campaigns.
Local government units should consistently inform and remind their constituents about the disease and the minimum health standards to avoid its spread, he said.
With the spike in cases, hospital beds are filling up.
Beds dedicated for critical COVID-19 patients at the East Avenue Medical Center (EAMC) in
Quezon City are already at 95 percent while those at the Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP) are now 80 percent occupied.
Dr. Alfonso Nuñez said the 95 percent utilization for critical COVID-19 patients is considered a “red alert” level.
“We are making strategies to increase our capacity as far as severe and critical cases are concerned,” he said. “We want to be one step ahead of everything.”
At present, he said only four to five beds for critical patients are available. He said the EAMC has a total of 250 beds for all COVID-19 patients. He added that 77 percent of these are so far occupied.
Nunez said they saw this number increase starting from the second half of February.
During that time, he said they were at 60 percent utilization for COVID beds, but this slowly increased and it went up to around 70 percent in the early days of March and it further climbed to 77 percent.
Meanwhile, LCP spokesperson Dr. Norberto Francisco said the occupancy in the hospital for COVID-19 patients has been “increasing rapidly” over the past 10 days.
He said currently, LCP has 105 beds for COVID-19 patients. He said 85 of them or 80 percent are already occupied.
“Slowly over the past few weeks, we’ve seen the occupancy rate to rise again from 30 to 40 to 60 percent, that’s why over the weekend we decided to open a new wing for COVID again,” he said.
Even some isolation rooms have been converted into wards to accommodate more patients.
The Department of Health (DOH) earlier said that beds in intensive care units dedicated to COVID-19 patients are beginning to get filled up in some regions, including Metro Manila, following the increase in coronavirus cases.
Dr. Beverly Ho, concurrent director IV of the DOH’s Health Promotion Bureau and Disease Prevention and Control Bureau, said the current ICU utilization for COVId-19 patients in Metro Manila is classified as a moderate risk, while national health care utilization rate is at 35 percent classified as a low risk.
A group of health professionals said they will not call for more stringent quarantine measures but strongly urged employers and the government to decongest workplaces and public transport by not imposing curfews to address the surge in COVID-19 cases.
Dr. Tony Dans of the Health Professionals Alliance Against COVID-19 said 80 percent of the intensive care units of COVID-19 referral hospitals in Metro Manila are already occupied at this point.
“We will not make that call for a time-out for now. It's nearing, but still, it's not now. We are listening to our colleagues on the ground,” Dans said.
He said statistics don't show it yet, but if they are feeling the pinch and are being overwhelmed by the number of people getting sick.
"We will be the first one to call for help if our doctors are in distress," said Dans.
The Philippines has been recording over 4,000 new COVID-19 cases for the past week.
Dr. Aileen Espina said employers and other businesses should decongest the workplace by implementing work from home setups or staggering work hours so employees will not have to go to work at the same time and enable them to strictly observe minimum health standards.
She also called for improved ventilation in the workplace.
Ho said some establishments' non-compliance with the ventilation rules set by the Department of Labor and Employment may have contributed to the increase in COVID-19 cases.
Espina also said there should be more open spaces that the people.
Meanwhile, the Alliance of Health Workers said the DOH and the government’s “militarist lockdown as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic was a failure, incompetent, inefficient and negligent.
"It has not solved the spread of the disease and infection but rather increased the number of people infected every day. The new COVID-19 variant has added to the rate of infection, including the homegrown variant which is highly contagious," the group said.