The Philippines on Thursday (Jan. 6) detected 29 additional cases of the Omicron variant, bringing the variant’s case tally in the country to 43.
The Department of Health (DOH) reported that the new cases are 10 returning Filipinos and 19 local cases with indicated addresses in the National Capital Region (NCR).
Fifteen of the local cases are active, three have already recovered, while the status of the remaining cases has yet to be identified.
The DOH said it “is verifying the test results and health status of all passengers of these flights to determine if there are other confirmed cases or passengers who became symptomatic after arrival.”
The new cases were detected from the 48 samples sequenced by the Philippine Genome Center (PGC), wherein more Omicron cases were detected compared to the 18 counts of Delta variant.
Due to the current transmission rate, the OCTA Research said it is possible for the country to record more than 20,000 new cases on Friday (Jan. 7). This followed the all-time high positivity rate of 45% on Jan. 5 in Metro Manila.
A total of 17,220 new cases have been reported on Jan. 6, bringing the active case count to 56,561.
Despite this, OCTA Research fellow Fr. Nicanor Austriaco said “Omicron is the beginning of the end of the pandemic because Omicron is going to provide the kind of population immunity that should stabilize our societies and should allow us to reopen after Omicron has begun.”
The group believes that Omicron can be considered as a natural vaccine for creating antibodies among vaccinated individuals against other COVID-19 variants.
“The Omicron is actually a blessing. It will be hard for one month but afterwards it should be a blessing because it should provide the population protection that we need everywhere,” Austriaco said.
IHU variant
The World Health Organization (WHO) is also monitoring a new variant detected in France named IHU variant. Initial studies showed it has 46 mutations, but it has not yet been considered a variant of concern.
Meanwhile, Infectious Disease Expert Dr. Edsel Salvana said he believes “vaccination is turning COVID-19 into the common cold.”
“Without vaccines, this would have been a very, very different story, even with Omicron… Vaccines are the game changer. Even amidst the rapid increase in cases, I am truly hopeful that if we keep vaccinating and boosting, we will be okay,” he said. – Report from Mark Fetalco/AG-rir
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