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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Duque: We’re past Omicron

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But warns PH not out of COVID crisis yet, says face mask still a must

The Philippines has already crossed the crisis stage of the surge caused by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said on Thursday.

In an interview on Dobol B TV, Duque noted improvements in the two-week growth rate, average daily attack rate (ADAR) and health care utilization nationwide.

“We’re over with the Omicron, but not the COVID-19,” he said in a separate interview with GMA News Online. ”We’re not out of the COVID crisis. The COVID crisis is still there.”

He noted that COVID-19 cases in the Philippines were low from November to December last year until the emergence of the more transmissible Omicron variant.

Now, he said, the two-week growth rate was minus 81 percent while the ADAR was at 7 cases per 100,000, which he said is considered “low-risk.”

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“Then our health systems capacity is also at low risk. A little over 30 percent of bed capacity is utilized. That’s three out of 10, so that’s low,” Duque said.

Still, he said now was not the time to remove the mandatory face mask policy.

“I don’t believe that the time is near to lift the face mask policy especially since we have campaign rallies. We should in fact intensify our compliance with minimum health standards,” he said in Filipino.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said health experts agree that face masks will be the last to go as they also protect people from other diseases apart from COVID-19.

Vergeire added that masks may go by the end of the year only if the COVID-19 cases are already manageable and the country reaches the endemic state by then.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier said the mandatory use of face masks would “most likely” be dropped by the fourth quarter of the year.

But the Palace said the mandatory use of face masks would be in effect even under the “new normal.”

Meanwhile, the Philippine National Police said on Thursday that 251 areas in the country are under granular lockdown due to COVID-19 cases, affecting 363 people, as of Wednesday.

The PNP said 139 of these areas were in Cordillera, 83 were in Ilocos, 16 were in the National Capital Region, and 13 in Cagayan.

Even if the country shifts to “new normal,” Vergerie hopes Filipinos will continue wearing face masks and practice other safety protocols.

“One of the things we are relying on as we shift to this new normal, meaning easing off restrictions, would be that people would be imbibing that culture or that practice where masks would be part of our daily lives, vaccination is there and also the safety protocols that we implement,” she said.

Meanwhile, acting presidential spokesman Karlo Nograles said the pandemic’s acute phase may end this year if 70 percent of the population is fully vaccinated by the middle of 2022.

In reaction to the concern aired by some doctors that the country was easing restrictions too soon, Vergeire said the transition to the “new normal” would be gradual.

“We’re not going to open up sectors drastically…we need to be able to slowly transition into a new normal. We need to go on and move on with our lives,” Vergeire said in an interview with ANC’s Headstart.

An area must have at least 80 percent vaccination rate for the elderly and persons with comorbidities, in addition to the safety seal requirement for establishments, in order to de-escalate to Alert Level 1, Vergeire said.

The Philippines on Thursday logged 2,196 new COVID-19 cases, the fourth consecutive day the tally remained below 3,000, as the total case count reached 3,646,793, the Department of Health (DOH) reported.

The positivity rate was at 9.7 percent, based on samples of 29,392 individuals tested on Feb. 15.

There were 66,588 active cases, of which 1,090 were asymptomatic; 60,848 were mild; 2,913 were moderate; 1,428 were severe; and 309 were critical.

There were 107 new fatalities reported, bringing the COVID-19 death toll to 55,330.

There were 4,409 more recoveries, raising the total number of recuperations to 3,524,875.

Nationwide, 31 percent of ICU beds, 27 percent of isolation beds, 23 percent of ward beds, and 17 percent of ventilators, are in use.

In Metro Manila, 31 percent of ICU beds, 25 percent of isolation beds, 26 percent of ward beds, and 20 percent of ventilators, are in use.

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