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Hike in COVID cases ‘not alarming’

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The Department of Health (DOH) said Thursday there is no cause for alarm over the increase in COVID-19 cases in the country this week.

All areas remain under low-risk case classification while hospital admission rates continue to be manageable, DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an interview with ABS-CBN News.

From Nov. 7 to 13, an average of 1,296 daily infections were recorded in the country, which is 43 percent higher compared to the previous week, she said.

While the country has gone a long way in terms of managing viral transmission and disease severity, Vergeire remained cautious in saying that COVID-19 had already become endemic, she said.

“For us to declare it’s already endemic, we need the help of our experts and WHO (World Health Organization) to provide us with this kind of expertise to say ‘we are endemic now’,'” she said.

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To say that COVID-19 has reached the state of endemicity, the number of cases has to be at an acceptable level, which Vergeire said was becoming more evident.

Severe and critical infections, as well as deaths from the disease, also have to be kept at a minimum.

“But what would be most important when you talk about endemicity, there is that level of immunity in the population against the specific disease. Right now, yes, our primary series is high, but our boosters are still low,” she said.

As of Nov. 15, around 73 million Filipinos are considered fully vaccinated, but only around 20.8 million have received their first booster dose.

“We need to be very certain about this immunity among the population before we can really say, and the criteria have been fulfilled, that we are really in an endemic state,” Vergeire said.

“We’re not saying it’s impossible. But now, I can see that light at the end of the tunnel so it appears we’re really going in that direction already. But right now, we cannot declare it as such this time. We’re not there yet,” she added.

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