The National Planning Authority (NPA) COVID-19 weekly projections model has projected an increase in the number of daily COVID-19 cases from 202 in the week ending August 14, 2021 to 242 in the week ending August 21, 2021.
NPA Executive Director,Dr Joseph Muvawala says in the first week of easing the lockdown, ending 7th August 2021, about 220 new daily cases were registered.
“The weekly new average COVID-19 cases are thus projected to increase from 1,419 in the week of 8th to 14th August to 1,692 in the week of 15th to 21st August, 2021. As previously envisaged, the model projects an increase in the number of daily COVID-19 cases from 202 in the week ending 14th August to 242 in the week ending 21st August, 2021,” the model projected.
Despite the increase in the number of cases, NPA says there is sufficient hospital bed capacity to handle the infections even if they triple.
Currently, the total number of available beds is 3,818 (3,541 governments and 277 private) although, the bed capacity is 4,399 (4,093 governments and 306 private).
“There is a total of 97 ICUs (Intensive Care Units) and 391 HDUs (High Dependency Units) in government facilities, and a combined 72 ICU/HDU beds in private hospitals. This implies that there is a total of 169 ICU beds in the country. Of these, 117 ICU beds are currently available. Therefore, even if the projected cases of 242 is used as a basis and the cases triple in the next 2 months, with the current capacity of 3,818 beds and the 169 ICUs in the country, the pandemic can still be manageable.”
Meanwhile, with the lockdown measures in place, the COVID-19 daily cases continued to fall with 259 cases being registered in the week ending 31st July down from 305 new daily cases for the week ending 24th July.
The slight increase in cases, NPA said is due to the increased movement following the easing of the lockdown measures.
“Generally, the reported new cases over the past two weeks have steadied at a daily average of 240 cases ranging between 71 and 393cases. Only four of the last 13 days recorded more than 300 cases. The rate of hospitalization and admission to ICUs is also going down having reached its peak in the month of June, 2021,” it noted.
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