The World Health Organization (WHO) is not yet considering the recent increase of COVID-19 cases in the country as another wave in the number of infections.
The country has been recording more than 5,000 cases per day since March 5. On March 9, a total of 2,668 cases were added.
“Because if you’re talking of a second wave, we should have seen a complete flattening of the curve. And in the case of NCR (National Capital Region), we didn’t see that kind of flattening,” WHO Country Rep. Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe explained.
“We always knew that there was quite a thick chain of transmission although the number went down at some stage to 3 to 400 on a daily basis,” he pointed out.
A more strengthened vaccination program rollout is now being pushed to lessen the number of severe COVID-19 cases and fatalities.
Based on the prioritization of the government, health workers under A1 and A2 category will have to be vaccinated first before proceeding to the rest of the priority beneficiaries including senior citizens, other vulnerable individuals, uniformed personnel, and the indigent population.
Around 4.5 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine are set to arrive in the country by the end of April or May. Despite the arrival of more supplies, the WHO emphasized that there is no room for complacency and urged the public to comply with protocols.
All local government units (LGUs) participating in further opening the economy are also advised to follow uniform protocol aside from early detection, isolation, and quarantine.
“Although we are now detecting clustering of cases in some cities, we are very closely looking whether it’s just very limited to this cities knowing the very nature of the way people travel between cities for work for business,” Abeyasinghe added.
– Report from Karen Villanda
