DOH exec: Isolation facilities in NCR now 78% occupied

At least 78% of isolation facilities in the National Capital Region (NCR)  are already occupied, Health Undersecretary Leopoldo Vega said Tuesday.

Vega made the announcement a day after the government implemented an NCR Plus bubble policy where residents of NCR and adjacent provinces Bulacan, Cavite, Rizal and Laguna are prevented from going outside the NCR plus border unless it is an essential trip—including going to the work place—from March 22 to April 4 to address the surge in COVID-19 cases.

Isolation facilities include quarantine hotels and temporary treatment and monitoring facilities (TTMF).

“We need to increase our isolation facilities because our TTMFs and isolation hotels are already occupied at 78%. If we have 8,000 new COVID-19 cases and 4,000 are in NCR since 63% of cases are in NCR, with 97% of them mild and asymptomatic, we need an extra number of isolation facilities,” Vega said during the Laging Handa briefing.

“Ito ang dapat unahin natin kasi ang ospital, last line of defense ‘yan for moderate and severe cases. Most of our cases are asymptomatic and mild, and so our first line of defense should be the TTMFs,” Vega added.

(We should prioritize this because hospitals should be the last line of defense for  moderate and severe cases).

The Philippines posted a record-setting 8,109 new COVID-19 cases in a day last March 22, the first day of the implementation of the NCR Plus bubble strategy.

Reproduction number

Earlier in the day, OCTA Research’s Professor Guido David said the stricter restrictions imposed over Metro Manila and its neighboring areas in the “bubble” are unlikely to bring down the reproduction number of the coronavirus to 1 within two weeks.

“Right now, the reproduction number in NCR is about 2.1 and if we want to reduce the number of cases, that means we have to reduce the reproduction number from 2.1 all the way down to 1. This cannot happen in two weeks, unfortunately,” he told CNN Philippines.

The reproduction number refers to the number of people that one COVID-19 case can infect.

“If we could get the reproduction number to about 1.5, that’s actually very optimistic. It’s unlikely to get it below that within two weeks. I’m not saying it’s impossible but it seems unlikely,” David said. — RSJ, GMA News