Experts studying the coronavirus outbreak in the country urged health workers to get themselves vaccinated against COVID-19 as cases in virus epicenter Metro Manila continue to rise.

In its report published on Monday, March 1, the Octa Research Group said that the rise in COVID-19 cases in some cities in the capital region “has become a serious cause for concern.”

“The 4-day average was 942, while the 7-day average was 762, which is an increase of 61% from the previous week and 94% from two weeks ago,” the Octa team said, noting that this pattern is similar to the ones observed in Cebu City, Mountain Province, and Benguet, where cases of the more infectious variant were detected.

The Octa team said given that a surge of new cases in Metro Manila is anticipated in the next few weeks, “our health workers in the National Capital Region (NCR) and in the adjacent provinces” need to get themselves vaccinated.

“There is a very small window of opportunity for health workers in the NCR to get vaccinated while the surge is still in its early stages and hospital occupancy in the region is still manageable,” the Octa team said

“Our healthcare workers in the region must seize this opportunity,” they added.

The latest Octa report comes as the country kicked off its vaccination drive on Monday, when a number of health workers and some government officials were legally inoculated with CoronaVac developed by Chinese company Sinovac.

Meanwhile, a number of health workers expressed reluctance to receive the Sinovac vaccine due to its low efficacy rate of 50.4%. (READ: Health workers who refuse Sinovac vaccine will remain on priority list – Malacañang)

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Director General Eric Domingo earlier said that CoronaVac’s lower efficacy from trials in Brazil led experts to not recommend its use in the priority sector. The Brazil trials involved health workers exposed to COVID-19.

The recommendation spurred days-long deliberations among experts belonging to the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group, who later approved the use of the vaccine for health workers, reiterating it is safe and effective.

The Philippine government expects to receive 5.1 million vaccine doses in March, which will be reserved mostly for 1.7 million healthcare workers and critical government frontliners.

665,000 COVID-19 cases by end-March

Meanwhile, the Octa team also noted that COVID-19 cases in the country are projected to reach 665,000 and deaths to hit 14,000 by March 31.

The reproduction rate (R) – the number of people that one COVID-19 positive case can infect – in NCR is at 1.5, the Octa team said.

Experts have said that the goal is to keep R below 1 to contain virus transmission until a COVID-19 vaccine becomes locally available.

“Under the current trend, the number of new COVID-19 cases per day will increase from its current average daily value of 770 to 2,200 by the end of March 2021, unless the spread of the virus is curbed,” they said.

For 5 consecutive days, the country logged over 2,000 COVID-19 cases. On Monday, a total of 2,037 cases were reported, bringing total cases in the country to 578,381. Of the total, 12,322 have died while 534,351 have recovered.

The country has 31,708 active cases. – Rappler.com