Just duck and stay safe

Here’s the good news: There’s no confirmed case of Covid-19 due to the Omicron variant in the Philippines yet. Well, it’s good news somehow.

It doesn’t mean it’s not here yet, however.

As of this writing, health authorities are still verifying if the three travelers who arrived in the Philippines recently from various places in Africa and the Middle East are carriers of the strain first reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 24 November this year.

The traveler who came from South Africa, where the variant was first detected, had tested positive for Covid-19. He arrived in the country on 16 November, but his case is being evaluated if he was infected with the Omicron variant.

His samples are still undergoing genome sequencing to determine if they have the Omicron variant.

The two others came from Burkina Faso in West Africa, and Egypt in the Middle East. They also tested positive for Covid-19 and their samples will be traced for possible Omicron strain.

There were 253 from South Africa, three from Burkina Faso, and 541 from Egypt who arrived in the Philippines from 15 to 29 November, and the government has assured that these travelers were fully processed and documented even before the new strain warning had been raised.

If one of them tests positive for the Omicron variant, it raises the possibility of claims that the new strain has been around for some time until it was “discovered” in South Africa, thus initially earning the tag as the “South African variant.”

The truth is, any variant could come from anywhere, including the Philippines, and world health authorities did the right thing in erasing any stigma from the countries where these new strains are discovered and will be discovered.

Omicron has been detected in 38 countries already. It took just days for it to spread.

There are no reported deaths so far from the new Covid-19 variant, though, according to the WHO as of last week, bolstering earlier findings that the strain should not be a cause for alarm.

The Department of Health, through Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, issued a similar statement last week, stating that the Omicron could be a real threat — like all strains are — but should not be a cause for panic.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, said Omicron had been reported in 38 countries, with the variant now spread across all six WHO regions, but it would take several weeks to determine how infectious the strain is.

Pharmaceutical companies are still trying to catch up with the mutations, while vaccines, tests, and treatments are being reviewed to know if they could hold up against Omicron.

“We’re going to get the answers that everybody out there needs,” WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said. “We need to trust in the science now and be patient and not be fearful.”

It’s also comforting that Van Kerkhove had mentioned that of the mild Omicron cases so far, those who were sick would not be getting on planes, although several countries have closed their ports from travelers coming from the affected nations.

It was, however, noted by not a few experts that the disparity in vaccine availability and the hoarding of jabs by the wealthier nations could affect the fight against Covid-19 in general and Omicron, in particular, if the new strain would be found with more potent than the previously known variants.

The other good news, however, is that the vaccines are holding up. There should not be a cause for alarm that all the vaccines approved for use globally would not be effective against Omicron. They do. That’s what the experts’ findings are, as of now.

Ryan is insistent that those who remain unvaccinated should rush to the next available program.

Having the general population protected against a more serious Covid-19 affliction is of great help in the global fight against the coronavirus because up to now it’s still the Delta variant that accounts for 99.8 percent of sequences uploaded to the GISAID global science initiative with specimens collected in the last 60 days.

Consider Omicron as “just there.” All we need to do for now is stay clear of it, and of any other variant for that matter.

“The

truth is, any variant could come from anywhere, including the Philippines, and world health authorities did the right thing in erasing any stigma from the countries where these new strains are discovered and will be discovered.

There should not be a cause for alarm that all the vaccines approved for use globally would not be effective against Omicron. They do.