NCR hospitals' bed, ICU capacity full by April due to COVID-19 –OCTA

Hospitals in the National Capital Region will reach full capacity in the first week of April as the country’s COVID-19 reproduction number neared two amid surging cases, the OCTA Research group projected Saturday.

The OCTA Research group said the reproduction number was currently around 1.95, which indicated that one positive individual can infect nearly two people.

“[O]ur modeling suggests that with the current reproduction number hovering around 1.9, we expect both total bed and ICU capacity to reach full 100 percent occupancy by the first week of April," it said.

A reproduction number of one or higher is an indication of the continuous transmission of the virus.

The OCTA Research group said that reducing the reproduction number to 1.5 may delay the projection by one to two weeks to the middle of April.

“Unless the national government and our LGUs take drastic and immediate action to significantly reduce the reproduction number… we should expect our hospital facilities and medical frontliners to be overwhelmed within a period of several weeks,” it said.

Despite this, the OCTA Research group said the parameters used in the model as conservative as it did not take into account the B.1.1.7 variant or UK variant, as well as the B.1.351 or the South Africa variant.

At present, the Philippines has reported 104 P.3 variant cases, 223 B.1.1.7 variant cases, and 152 B.1.351 variant cases.

“We wanted to present the best-case scenario,” it said.

The OCTA Research group said it assumed a conservative estimate of 10 percent for hospitalization numbers of ICU patients despite recent data suggesting that it is around 11 or 12 percent.

It also used estimates that exceeded the current bed capacities in NCR.

Just a day after the Philippines reported its highest case increase in a single day, the country once again set a new record with 7,999 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the total to 656,056.

The OCTA Research group has said the Philippines could see 11,000 new COVID-19 cases daily by the end of March.

The group asked Metro Manila mayors to consider stricter quarantine measures if the surge in COVID-19 cases will continue after two weeks. — DVM, GMA News