(2ND UPDATE) – The highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus disease drove Covid-19 cases this week to skyrocket, forcing the government to impose new restrictions after a holiday season of leniency.
But experts are seeing that the omicron variant might serve as a natural vaccination that could signal the beginning of the pandemic’s end.
The Department of Health today recorded 17,220 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the total caseload to 2,888,917. This is the highest single day increase since Sept. 24.
The positivity rate hit 36.9 percent, a record-high for the second straight day.
Active cases now stand at 56,561.
Metro Manila and four provinces – Bulacan, Cavite, Rizal and Laguna – are now placed under the more stringent Alert Level 3 until Jan. 15, reducing capacities at indoor and outdoor venues and banning face-to-face classes on the elementary level.
The traditional Traslacion – the procession of the Black Nazarene from Quirino Grandstand to Quiapo Church – is canceled anew this Jan. 9 amid the Covid-19 surge.
On Monday night, President Rodrigo Duterte appealed to the Catholic Church to suspend in-person gatherings to mitigate the disease’s transmission.
“Our job is really to come out with critical decisions to protect public health and public safety. Kung nakikinig ang Roman Catholic Church [If the Church is listening], I am now appealing to you to forego and cancel all physical gatherings including the procession and the celebration of mass sa church because marami yan sila [there will be a lot of people],” he said in his latest address.
The reimposition of restrictions comes after a holiday season of unrestricted movement, allowing children outside parks and inside malls. Experts think that gatherings are the culprit of local transmission of the omicron variant.
Currently, there are now 43 cases of the highly transmissible variant in the Philippines, 29 of which were newly reported today.
Out of those 29 cases, 19 are local, from which 14 are tagged as active, three recovered and two are still under verification.
But if there’s a silver lining from this another grim chapter of the pandemic, it’s that the omicron variant may serve as a ‘natural vaccine’ that could achieve population protection, according to a fellow from the independent Octa Research Group.
“So as the virus rapidly increases, it’s going to try to spread to everyone and it’s going to try to find as many of our kababayans vulnerable. It is spreading so rapidly, what you will expect is it will run out the food sooner,” Fr. Nicanor Austriaco said in a town hall meeting.
“And when it runs out of food, it will begin to crash — which is why you see in South Africa, the numbers are crashing. In London, the numbers are beginning to fall only because, once it spreads like wildfire, and when all the trees are burned, there’s nowhere for it to go. So it begins to crash,” he added.
Fr. Austriaco is confident that this will be the “beginning of the end of the pandemic,” expected to produce antibodies to an infected patient against the Delta, Gamma, Beta, Alpha and D614G variants.
“We should expect that most of these cases will be mild. We should expect fewer hospitalizations and deaths,” he said.
South Africa and Botswana first identified the existence of the omicron variant, a distinctive combination of more than 50 mutants. It has imperiled the reopening of most countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States. The World Health Organization designated it as a ‘variant of concern’ on Nov. 26.
Mr. Duterte has already fretted about the omicron variant during the signing of the 2022 budget on Dec. 30, saying it might “intrude into the budget” and require other expenditures
“If we are hit with the easy transmission of the character of this mutant, we will have again the same problem. I said though it is not, they say, a lethal mutant or microbe, well, I am just giving you…what is bothering me. It might translate into… again, for government to pour again the resources of the new resurgence of COVID-19 with another form,” the president said.
“It’s what worrying me. Otherwise, it’s OK. If it comes, it stares eyeball to eyeball with us… Eventually Congress would be the one who would handle this thing. You have to pass the laws that will be needed, I said, to cope…with this new problem looming in the horizon,” he added.
Featured image from The Daily Tribune.
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The COVID-19 Pandemic
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