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PH officials checking on condition of first 2 Omicron cases' co-passengers
PH officials checking on condition of first 2 Omicron cases' co-passengers
Philippine authorities are now checking on the health condition of the co-passengers of the first two Omicron variant cases detected in the country.
"At present, active case finding and contact-tracing are being conducted to determine the health condition of co-passengers of the said confirmed cases," Cabinet Secretary and Acting Presidential Spokesperson Karlo Nograles said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon, Dec. 15.
Before this, Nograles said the Office of the President had been informed of the existence of the two coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases linked to the new Omicron variant.
"As earlier reported by the Department of Health (DOH), the variant was detected among two recent travelers to the Philippines, both of whom are presently in quarantine facilities," he said.
The Palace official hailed local health experts, particularly the DOH, the University of the Philippines – Philippine Genome Center, and the University of the Philippines – National Institutes of Health for their early detection of the two cases.
"This early detection forms part of our Prevent-Detect-Isolate-Treat-Reintegrate (PDITR) strategy that has been in place all throughout the pandemic," added Nograles, who serves as spokesperson of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).
"We assure our people that we will closely monitor developments of the two cases in light of existing protocols, as we continue to remind the public not to let their guard down, to religiously observe minimum public health standards, and call upon all those unvaccinated to get their jabs as soon as possible," he further said.
Earlier Wednesday, Nograles announced the IATF's decision to maintain the Philippines’ risk classification at alert level 2 in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic for the period of Dec. 16 to 31.
Alert level 2 is the second most lenient classification under the prevailing Alert Level System (ALS).
The Philippines tallied 235 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, Dec. 14. This was the fewest fresh cases of the deadly disease recorded in the country since May 2020.
Despite the much-improved COVID-19 numbers, Nograles said the threat posed to the country by the Omicron variant was precisely the reason why the IATF didn't de-escalate the risk classification to alert level 1.