Post-holiday virus spike alarm raised

It’s important not to go back to the situation months ago where additional infections on a daily basis reached 2,000

Despite an expected surge of cases by the holiday season, the OCTA team on Saturday warned that it should be controlled otherwise it may be difficult for the country to recover for 2021.

Mathematician and research fellow Dr. Guido David said that it’s important not to go back to the situation months ago where additional infections on a daily basis reached 2,000.

He said once cases are stabilized, an improvement in the health system may be easier to achieve in the following year.

“We are expecting that if there is a possible surge now it may reach up to 800 to 1,000 cases per day in Metro Manila, that is still doable to control. Though of course we don’t want an increase but that’s somehow our threshold already,” he told a radio interview.

“And then after the holiday season, we expect that cases can be lowered again,” he added.

David noted that it is inevitable for an uptick of cases to happen since people are more enticed to go out after being in a state of pandemic fatigue for months of staying indoors.

But what should be monitored is that the number of infected individuals should not reach the critical level which could overwhelm the health capacity.

“Even if we tell them, we really can’t stop the people; they already have pandemic fatigue and want to experience at least some happiness because of what they experienced in 2020 that we understand was hard for many of us,” he said.

He said that in the past weeks, cases have been stabilized as they hope that it will not progress beyond their projected increase in number especially with continuous monitoring on existing hotspots.

As initially mentioned, among these regions include regions of Metro Manila, CALABARZON, Central Luzon and Davao.

Meanwhile, Infectious Disease specialist Dr. Edsel Salvana have again reiterated their call for the public’s cooperation in following minimum health standards during the upcoming Christmas season.

He said that families should just celebrate within the household and avoid being in contact with others to prevent any transmission of the disease.

If the need persists, Salvana suggested at least conducting it in open air spaces or allowing for more ventilation by opening the windows.

Also, they should not eat all at once or in front of each other as it is better to control the number of people taking off their masks when eating.

He reiterated that the highest risk of infection is still in the droplet infection which is passable just by talking to each other especially in nearer distances.

Earlier the OCTA team projected that the number of cases could reach up to 500,000 by end-December considering the current trend of cases.

However, they underscored that it can easily go higher if the public continues to practice complacency instead of following the minimum health standards during the holidays.

To date, the Philippines has a total of 436,345 reported infected individuals with active cases at over 28,000 and a death toll of 8,509.