No need to tighten virus restrictions: Manila expert

MANILA: There’s no need for the Philippines to tighten restrictions despite the confirmed presence of the deadly coronavirus Omicron subvariant BA.2.12.1, an infectious disease expert said on Monday.

Dr Edsel Salvana pointed out that since the detection of BA.2.12.1 in the country, the Department of Health (DOH) did not report an increase in cases that could threaten the country’s healthcare system.

“For now, we are seeing no increase in the number of cases and our healthcare facility is still okay. I don’t think we need to tighten our COVID-19 restrictions,” Salvana told a public briefing.

Salvana was referring to an earlier DOH report confirming the detection in April of 16 BA.2.12.1 infections in the Philippines – 14 from the island province of Palawan and two from Metro Manila.

The DOH said most of the Palawan cases involved passengers of a cruise vessel that visited the capital city of Puerto Princesa and a local guide. Actually, the DOH said the first confirmed Omicron BA 2.12.1 case was a woman from Finland who visited the Philippines in April but recovered and had since returned home.

In this light, what is important, Salvana said, is for people to continue by complying with the basic health protocols like wearing of face masks and observance of social distancing as well as geting vaccinated and taking their booster shots.

He also said that the age of lockdowns or community quarantines as solutions to the spread of COVID-19 is apparently over. The government has adopted the five-tier alert level system to cope with problems posed by COVID-19 and its variants.

On Sunday night, Secretary Martin Andanar, the acting presidential spokesman, reported that the Inter-agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases had approved the recommendation to declare Metro Manila and other areas in the country under the most relaxed Alert Level 1 from May 16 to 31.

Aside from Metro Manila, also covered by the Level 1 were 79 provinces, highly urbanised cities and independent component cities as well as 160 other cities and municipalities throughout the country.