But number of COVID cases may still rise — OCTA
THE reproduction rate of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has further slowed down in the National Capital Region (NCR), the independent OCTA Research Team said yesterday.
Prof. Guido David, an OCTA Research fellow, said the group’s daily monitoring of COVID-19 cases showed that the reproduction rate (R naught) in Metro Manila is now at 0.99.
Guido on Wednesday said that as of April 20, NCR’s reproduction rate had gone down to 1.01 from the 1.90 R naught prior to the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine in the NCR and the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal, collectively called the NCR Plus, from March 29 to April 11.
“Our reproduction rate in NCR has gone down to 0.99. It is already less than 1. Our current average in NCR now is 4,300 cases daily. Two weeks ago, it was at 5,100 cases per day.
So, there was a big improvement,” David said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that the goal is to reduce and maintain COVID-19’s reproductive rate to below 1.
The R naught is the expected number of cases directly generated by one positive individual in a particular population.
David, however, stressed that the reproduction rate remains shaky and may still increase in the coming days.
“The trend is still unstable. It is not yet guaranteed that the trend will already be decreasing here in the NCR,” said David, adding that “we expect that cases will still be high for the next few weeks.”
The Department of Health (DOH) has earlier cautioned against prematurely concluding that the “artificial decline” in COVID-19 cases is already the effect the of the two-week ECQ in the NCR Plus.
“We cannot say yet that it is conclusive,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire has said, adding the impact of the ECQ and the current modified ECQ imposition in the bubble will likely start showing next week.
David reiterated the importance of following minimum health protocols, especially the wearing of face masks and shields and observing physical distancing, to control the spread of the virus.
“It is still back to basics for us, like wearing face masks, avoiding crowded places. We have to focus on those,” he said.
National Task Force against the Coronavirus Disease (NTF COVID-19) deputy chief implementer and testing czar secretary Vince Dizon said public and private hospitals in the NCR Plus have committed to provide 176 intensive care units (ICU) beds and more than 1,000 ward beds for COVID-19 patients.
Dizon said once available, this will help lower the current ICU utilization rate to around 70 plus percent from 82 percent.
He said the ward beds, especially the ICU beds, which are important for critical and severe cases, are expected to be available by May.
He said the Department of Health (DOH) has also committed to provide additional health workers to complement the additional rooms.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the additional ICU beds and the lowering of the utilization rate to 70 percent is significant as it could bring down the ICU utilization rate to moderate and help justify the lowering of the quarantine classification from the current moderate enhanced community quarantine (MECQ).
He said other factors being considered in lowering the quarantine classification are the daily and weekly average attack rates, and the daily reproduction rate of COVID-19 cases.
“The 176 additional beds mentioned by Secretary Dizon is crucial if we want to lower the quarantine classification and reopen economy,” he said, adding that there should be available ICU beds in case workers get infected when they start returning to work.
Roque said increasing the ICU capacity in hospitals is one of the twin strategies used by the government to improve the healthcare capacity of hospitals. The other is transferring the patients infected with mild and moderate COVID-19 to temporary treatment and monitoring facilities (TTMF) where they will continue to receive treatment.
He said at present, government hospitals are looking at converting regular beds into ICU beds and now evaluating if they have available rooms that can be converted. — With Jocelyn Montemayor
