Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday showed the Philippines has the highest number of daily reported COVID-19 cases in the Western Pacific Region followed by Malaysia, Japan, and Korea.
Dr. John Wong, an epidemiologist and member of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) technical committee on data analytics, said the UK variant of SARS- CoV-2 is a possible driver of the case increase in the country, particularly in Metro Manila.
“’Yung (The) South African variant makes the virus more resistant to the vaccine but does not increase transmissibility. ‘Yung (The) UK variant increases transmissibility, so maybe part of the surge we are experiencing now is due to the UK variant,” Wong explained.
The Department of Health (DOH) is now seeking the assistance of the WHO to further evaluate the ongoing situation. The Philippine Genome Center (PGC) is also collecting more specimens to determine the extent of the transmission of new variants.
“In certain cities in NCR (National Capital Region), we’ll see na (that) if the UK variant becomes the dominant strain, meaning it infects more than 50 percent of the cases, we can have 9 times more cases after a month,” Wong projected.
The OCTA Research Group earlier warned of a possible increase in cases of up to 6,000 by the end of the month based on the current reproduction number of COVID-19.
“Only if everyone is fully vaccinated then you can stay inside together. Pero kung may kasamang (But if there is someone) unvaccinated, the unvaccinated must wear a mask,” Wong advised.
Dr. Anna Lisa Ong Lim of the DOH technical advisory group is also urging the public to practice minimum health standards amid the increase of cases among families and despite the rollout of vaccines.
“Sa ngayon siguro walang mawawala kung magdoble ingat tayo, lalo na sa ating setting ngayon na kaunti pa lang ang nabakunahan (There is nothing to lose if we practice safety, especially with our setting where only a few have been vaccinated so far),” Ong suggested. – Report from Mark Fetalco
