Taguig Mayor Lino Cayetano warned the public on the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
The World Health Organization (WHO) classified the B.1.1.529 variant, which was first detected in South Africa, as a variant of concern and named it Omicron last Nov. 26.
In his weekly report, Cayetano said, “Itong linggong to, bumaba ang mga kaso natin kumpara sa huling linggo. Pero alam natin lahat, nababalitaan natin sa diyaryo, sa telebisyon ‘yung balita ng pagpasok ng Omicron (This week, our cases went down compared to last week. But we all know, we learned it from newspapers, on television about the news on the entry of Omicron).”
“Sa kasalukuyan, sa recording ng broadcast na ito, wala pa hong nade-detect na Omicron dito sa Pilipinas. Ngunit tulad ho ng nangyari sa Delta variant, minsan ho nahuhuli ng ilang araw, ilang linggo ang detection (At present, as of the recording of this broadcast, no Omicron has been detected in the Philippines. But like what happened to the Delta variant, sometimes the detection is late by a few days, a few weeks),” he said.
Cayetano said, “Kailangan ho ini-expect na ho natin na maaaring nandiyan na (We need to expect that may be it is already here).”
The mayor said based on the advice of the Taguig City Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance Unit (CEDSU), the mode of transmission of the Omicron and other variants is the same but Omicron is more contagious.
“But we can use the same defenses as we did with the other variants. The distancing, mask, handwashing. Please continue to beware. The most important of all is vaccination,” said Cayetano.
Last Dec. 9, the Department of Health, University of the Philippines-Philippine Genome Center (UP-PGC) and the UP National Institutes of Health (UP-NIH) reported no Omicron variant was detected from the 48 samples sequenced on Dec. 8.
Of the 48, 38 (79.17 percent) were Delta (B.1.617.2) variant cases. The 48 samples sequenced were from 12 Returning Overseas Filipinos (ROFs) and 36 local cases from areas with high-risk average daily attack rates and case clusters.
As of Dec. 13, Taguig has 29 active COVID-19 cases including 11 new cases out of 52,354 confirmed cases, 51,886 recoveries and 439 deaths.