The Department of Health (DOH) is eyeing a shorter quarantine period for fully vaccinated health workers who have been exposed to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said health workers will be quarantined for seven days and will be tested on the fifth day.

“Ito po ay naging rekomendasyon naman ng ating mga eksperto na maaaring pitong araw na quarantine basta meron silang fifth day testing at sila po ay negatibo (This was the recommendation of our experts that a seven-day quarantine is enough as long as they get tested on the fifth day and test negative)," she said in an interview with DZMM Teleradyo on Tuesday, August 24.

The health official said this is to address the shortage of health workers in hospitals as number of COVID-19 cases in the country continues to increase.

Vergeire said the DOH will issue a policy that will shorten the quarantine period of fully vaccinated healthcare workers who came into close contact with a COVID-19 patient so that they won’t have to be out of the hospital for 14 days.

"Ito po ay fina-finalize pa (It's still being finalized). We need to vet with our experts, but if in case they agree, we are going to issue this policy po," she said.

Vergeire, meanwhile, said that the daily COVID-19 cases in the country will continue to rise in the coming days or weeks.

On Monday, August 23, the country recorded 18,332 new COVID-19 cases, the highest in a single day since the pandemic started March last year.

"Now that local governments are doing active case finding, mas makikita nating tataas pa rin talaga ang kaso for these initial weeks that we are headed to (Now that local governments are doing active case finding, we can see more and more cases will actually increase for these initial weeks that we are headed to)," she said.