A record-high of 33,083 new cases in the Philippines has been tallied by the Department of Health on January 10, 2022, as Covid-19 blows another wave right after the holiday season leading to a total of 3,000,000 cases since the onset of the virus in the country.
The Omicron variant is also gaining traction with 43 confirmed local transmissions and foreign cases. DOH explained that this number does not portray all existing cases as these include only the recorded ones and possibilities show that there is a higher statistics.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the department projects a peak of the cases assumed to be driven by the highly infectious variant by the end of the month. However, no further information was added as this was only a “rough estimate.” shall decline after the peak.
Usec. Vergeire said in a press briefing, “we are now high-risk case classification… showing a positive two-week growth rate at 222% and moderate average daily attack rate (ADAR) at 1.07 per 1000 individuals.”
The ADAR refers to the number of new cases in an area for over two weeks, divided by the population in the said vicinity.
The country has previously been placed under high risk during the spike of the highly-transmissible Delta variant in the previous year. Experts have said that Omicron is the most transmissible coronavirus variant, so far.
The spike of cases was blamed on the citizens for “failing to follow the minimum health protocol of wearing face masks and maintaining social distancing” plus the existence of the Omicron variant.
Recently, a person named Gwyneth Chua went trending on social media for breaking quarantine protocols to social gathering only to find out later that she had tested positive with the virus, resulting in the same results for her fellow party-goers.
Chua arrived from the US, had checked into a hotel in Makati on December 22, and was seen partying the following day. Tourism Secretary Bernadette-Romulo-Puyat said Chua was able to escape quarantine because of her “connections”.
On December 27, her results showed positive for Covid although no information was disclosed if the sequencing indicated that it was an Omicron variant. DOH said she shall be dealt with accordingly.
Due to this, many areas have already increased their alert levels. Zamboanga City, currently under Alert Level 2, will reimpose the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test requirement for inbound travelers regardless of the vaccination status from areas with higher alert levels starting January 12.
