Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 12) — A member of the research group monitoring the pandemic warned the current case trend suggests hospital COVID-19 bed occupancy in Metro Manila may hit critical level by next week.
Even as the country tallied another 12,439 infections in the latest update – the highest rise in four months – OCTA Research fellow Fr. Nicanor Austriaco said it is still uncertain if the ongoing spike in infections has already peaked.
The molecular biologist added OCTA will still have to monitor new cases for a few more days before recommending the next community quarantine classification for the National Capital Region.
“At the moment, it still looks like it’s increasing rapidly, and our hospitals are actually exceeding the projections that we made two weeks ago, suggesting that our hospitals will reach critical capacity next week,” Austriaco said Thursday.
Hitting critical capacity means over 85% of beds allocated for COVID-19 patients have already been occupied.
Based on Department of Health data, 40 out of 159 or around 1 in 4 medical facilities in Metro Manila were under the critical level as of Aug. 11.
Meanwhile, 23 hospitals were at “high risk” or have reported 70% to 85% occupancy.
The bed utilization rate for the entire region stood at 61.5%, which falls under the “moderate risk” classification.
Should the numbers continue to rise, Austriaco said OCTA will be ready to seek an extension of the strictest enhanced community quarantine in NCR, which is scheduled to end on Aug. 20.
