There is a high possibility that the Omicron variant of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) is already infecting people here, a local health official said Thursday.
Dr. Cathy Garcia, assistant city health officer, made the statement citing that the steady increase in cases of Covid-19 for the past days could be caused by the Omicron variant.
Garcia said the latest data they have gathered indicated that there are 319 active cases of Covid-19 here.
Garcia added that 93 of the 319 active cases were recorded Wednesday.
“This is the highest so far for this year,” Garcia said.
The active cases steadily climbed to 319 from 85 on January 4, based on the Zamboanga Task Force Covie-19 data tracker.
Garcia said the data they gathered showed that there are 22,906 cumulative confirmed Covid-19 cases with 21,478 recoveries, 319 active, and 1,109 deaths here as of Wednesday.
The local Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) has lifted effective November 16 the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) requirement for fully vaccinated inbound travelers.
“The previous months we have not required the RT-PCR test anymore for vaccinated individuals. There were breakthrough infections among those vaccinated,” Garcia said.
“So the ‘driver’ of the increase may be the (Omicron) variant,” she added.
Health experts said the Omicron variant of the Covid-19, which was first found in South Africa on November 24, 2021, is likely to spread more easily than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The Philippines has a total of 43 Omicron variant cases as of Tuesday – 21 local cases while the other 22 came from international travelers.
Source: Philippines News Agency
