Motorist traverse an almost empty Commonwealth Avenue as the government implements a strict lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in Quezon city, Philippines. AP

The Philippine government extended a lockdown by another week on Monday after an alarming spike in coronavirus infections continued to surge and started to overwhelm many hospitals in the capital and outlying regions.

President Rodrigo Duterte placed Metropolitan Manila and four outlying provinces, a region of more than 25 million people, back under lockdown last week as daily infections breached the 10,000-mark. Leaders of the dominant Roman Catholic church shifted its Holy Week and Easter events online after all public gatherings, including in places of worship, were temporarily banned.

Rodrigo Duterte gestures during his fourth State of the Nation address at the Philippine Congress in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines. File/AP

The government-run Lung Center of the Philippines became the latest hospital in the capital region to announce over the weekend that it can no longer accept walk-in patients after its COVID-19 ward reached full capacity while its emergency room was now handling twice its capacity.

“We are not just full. We are very full. In fact, the hospital has been full for the past two weeks,” Lung Center spokesman Dr. Norberto Francisco said.

People wearing face masks as a protection against the coronavirus disease, attend an Easter Sunday Mass, in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines. AP

Other hospitals said they could take steps to expand bed capacity but there was inadequate number of medical workers partly because many had also been infected.

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Duterte’s administration has increasingly faced criticisms of mishandling the pandemic but presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the spread of more infectious coronavirus variants came as a surprise. “No one could have probably foreseen how infectious these new variants are and as a result of which we have these ballooning numbers,” Roque told ABS CBN News, adding officials would inaugurate a 110-bed intensive-care unit in a hospital in the capital region Monday and were planning to launch mobile COVID-19 intensive-care centers.

The Philippines has reported more than 795,000 COVID-19 cases with 13,425 deaths, the highest totals in Southeast Asia after Indonesia.

Associated Press