Philippines coronavirus cases top 1mn, says govt

(File photo) A woman gets a free coronavirus disease (COVID-19) swab testing at a gymnasium in Navotas City, Metro Manila, Philippines, recently. (Reuters)

The Philippines yesterday announced that its Covid-19 cases had exceeded 1mn, as the country sought to boost healthcare capacity to ease strains on hospitals and medical staff stretched by a second wave of infections. The Philippines imposed a two-week lockdown of Manila and surrounding provinces late last month to try to stem a surge in cases blamed on more contagious Covid-19 variants. Health Undersecretary Rosario Vergeire warned infections would go back up if restrictions were relaxed now. “As a health agency, we in the DOH (department of health) see the importance of continuing these kinds of restrictions so there is breathing room and space for decongestion of our healthcare system,” Vergeire said ahead of a government task force meeting to decide on the issue. “This is primarily our major concern.” But while daily infections have eased slightly they have still averaged more than 9,000, against 5,525 in March and 213 per day in April 2020, health ministry data showed. In the capital region, an urban sprawl of 16 cities home to at least 13mn people, intensive care unit (ICU) capacity is above 70%, while 57% of isolation beds and 64% of ward beds for Covid-19 patients were occupied as of April 26. In a bid to admit more patients, tents were turned into Covid-19 emergency rooms at the National Kidney Transplant Institute, a government hospital in Manila. “All in all we waited for almost six hours It’s a long difficult wait,” Covid-19 patients Roel Galan saidd, speaking outside a makeshift emergency room. Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said yesterday 289 additional ICU beds would be made available in the capital. To free up beds for severe Covid-19 patients, the Philippine Red Cross yesterday said it has set up field hospital tents and converted unused classrooms and buildings into quarantine facilities to care for patients with moderate and mild symptoms. The government has been redeploying healthcare workers from low-transmission regions to the capital to support struggling hospitals. Philippine Red Cross chairman Richard Gordon said more medical volunteers were “urgently” needed. Dr John Wong, a member of the government’s coronavirus task force’s data analytics team, said authorities must ramp up vaccinations to contain the virus and allow the economy to reopen. He said 350,000 people needed to be vaccinated a day so the government could meet its target of immunising 70mn, or a third of the country’s population, this year.