PH at Critical Risk as Omicron-driven wave surges — DOH
By Emilio Escudero
The Philippines repeatedly broke records for reaching unprecedented high COVID-19 cases, more than 30,000 infections, for five straight days as Omicron supersedes Delta as the dominant variant in the country. This prompted the government to raise the case classification to critical risk considering that COVID-19 cases surpassed the three million mark.
Omicron replacing Delta
Last January 15, the Department of Health (DOH) announced that the highly contagious Omicron variant had started community transmission in Metro Manila, the epicenter of the country’s latest outbreak.
“We are seeing community transmission of the Omicron variant here in the National Capital Region,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an interview on People’s Television.
Moreover, she added that the current trend of COVID-19 surges is a characteristic of an Omicron-driven wave.
Meanwhile, DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III said in a taped briefing with the president last January 10 that the Omicron variant has superseded the Delta variant as the dominant strain in the country.
“Based on our last run of genome sequencing, 60% of the samples sequenced were found positive for Omicron variant,” Duque said in the briefing with the president referring to the genomic sequencing on January 3.
Currently, the Philippines has detected 43 cases of the Omicron variant, which is believed to be the reason for the unprecedented high cases. Additionally, the country already has 3,270,758 coronavirus cases as of January 18 and 284,458 of them are active.
DOH declaring PH as critical risk
Duque announced last January 10 that the country is now at critical risk from COVID-19 as it struggles to curb the steep increase in infections believed to be caused by the Omicron variant.
“Our country is currently under critical risk case classification with a 690% increase in the seven-day moving average of daily reported cases,” Duque said in the televised cabinet meeting.
The classification was elevated after the country recorded an all-time high of 3,663% two-week COVID-19 growth rate. Additionally, the number of infected individuals per 100,000 population, or the daily attack rate, has increased to 10.47.
Among the regions at critical risk are Metro Manila, Region IV-A, and Central Luzon, as they have consistently been the top contributing areas in terms of new COVID-19 cases.
The positivity rate also reached a new record of 47.4% out of 81,381 tests done last January 14. This means that approximately one in every two people tested positive for the virus.
This sudden increase in infections threatens to overwhelm the vulnerable healthcare system of the country as more healthcare workers, and hospital staff have been testing positive for coronavirus.
Increasing RT-PCR test capacity
Many Filipinos have claimed that testing labs are congested, causing difficulties in obtaining slots and delays in receiving test results. In addition, people have also resorted to using antigen kits, even though the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not yet approved them for usage.
Consequently, incumbent Senator Risa Hontiveros called the government again to increase the testing capacity.
“At the rate we are going, [the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease] has to double their daily output. Kasabay nito, dapat libre ang tests para sa mga high-risk individuals, at sa mga vulnerable sectors, tulad ng ating mga senior citizens,” Hontiveros explained.
President Rodrigo Duterte also asked the DOH to allot more funds to increase the country’s COVID-19 testing capacity, particularly the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests.
However, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said the government would continue targeted testing, opposing mass testing, which some groups and politicians have called for.
