THE number of COVID-19 patients seeking admission in hospitals and healthcare facilities is increasing in Metro Manila as COVID-19 cases increase, the Department of Health said yesterday as experts monitoring the infections said the National Capital Region could now be seeing a community transmission of the Delta variant.
As of the latest tally, there were 47 cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant in Metro Manila, out of 216 cases nationwide. The DOH, which reported yesterday at least 8,000 new infections, earlier said it was still waiting for the completion of an analysis of the Philippine Genome Center to determine if a community transmission of the Delta variant is occurring.
Health Undersecretary and treatment czar Leopoldo Vega said the One Hospital Command (OHC) has been seeing a surge in calls for assistance, and the healthcare and ICU utilization rate in Metro Manila is also rising.
“The number of calls is steadily increasing. This means we are seeing problems of many getting sick or infected,” he said in a radio interview.
He said that from 90 to 110 calls a day in early July, the OHC received 175 to 180 calls daily in the latter part of the month, prompting the hiring of more call center agents.
Vega said the OHC manpower has now reached 110 call receivers and medical coordinators.
On the healthcare and ICU utilization rate, he said, “The ICU beds in Metro Manila are already at the moderate risk threshold at 59 percent.”
He asked everyone to do their part to prevent the further spread of the virus.
“We believe that we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg. So we really need to take action.
If we don’t control the transmission, many will be infected,” Vega said.
Earlier, the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) decided to place Metro Manila under the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), the strictest restriction status, from August 6 to 20.
The independent OCTA Research Team, while deferring to the health department, said DOH official data shows community transmission of the Delta variant.
“If we follow the 25 percent (of the samples sequenced), that means that the National Capital Region, on average, has 300 new Delta variant cases per day. If there are 300 cases per day, we can say there is already community transmission,” said said OCTA fellow Guido David.
“Based on the 25 percent, we know that cases are still increasing. The increase in the Delta variant is accelerating because one week ago it was only 15 percent. Actually, it was only 2 percent to 3 percent a month ago,” he added.
