BRACING FOR OMICRON | Philippines advised to keep current quarantine curbs amid fears of Omicron

December 28, 2021 , 10:03 PM

By Clarist Zablan

(December 28, 2021) – The Philippines need to keep its current quarantine restrictions rather than downgrading it, the government’s health adviser said on Tuesday, as the nation braces for a possible surge in coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases due to the Omicron variant of concern.

Ted Herbosa said that the country should stay at Alert Level 2 to keep the public cautious over the new variant of concern, as authorities prepare to ramp up the vaccination program and strengthen surveillance on new COVID-19 cases.

“There are people who are claiming ibaba na to Alert Level 1. I am one of the few, Alert Level 2 stays. We need to keep people cautious,” Herbosa said on Cignal TV’s One News channel’s program ‘Sa Totoo Lang.’

“Magsuot pa rin ng mask. Prevent pa rin natin yung mga high risk events. Yung mga superspreader events like mass gathering, mga big parties, big concert. Talagang hindi pa siguro pwede with the threat of the Omicron variant.”

The Health Department tallied 421 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, as the daily caseload and positivity rates grew slightly in the past few days as Filipinos celebrated Christmas. University professors from OCTA Research said that it’s too early to tell if the uptick in cases had outside factors besides the holiday rush.

Although the Delta variant still dominated the COVID-19 samples sequenced by the Philippine Genome Center (PCG), the facility has detected four cases of the Omicron variant in the country, all coming from international visitors and returning overseas Filipinos.

The department is planning to release a circular that will push for the rollout of booster doses to protect the public from the Omicron variant, which is feared to be potentially more resistant to vaccines, based on preliminary data, Herbosa said.

The circular will also seek to ramp up surveillance, push for more work-from-home arrangement, and open up telemedicine services.“Tumataas ang cases natin, whether its Omicron or not, for the past seven days, we have seen a decrease of our reproductive number and our number of cases. Nasa 400+ ulit today. Kahapon, nag-P300. The day before was 438,” Herbosa said.

The husband of the fourth Omicron case, who traveled from the United States, was also positive for COVID-19. Herbosa believed that he could have also gotten Omicron from the fourth case, although this won’t be considered a case of community transmission yet.

“That is my clinical impression kasi alangan namang Delta pa yun,” Herbosa said. “Yung asawa niya, Omicron so it’s a matter of confirmation na lang by the full genome sequencing… Even if that’s the fifth, imported case pa rin siya. At least wala pa tayong community transmission.”

(MM)

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