The Omicron variant may replace Delta as the dominant coronavirus variant in the Philippines due to its higher transmissibility, an official of the World Health Organization (WHO) raised this possibility on Friday, Dec. 17.

“It's very likely that the Omicron variant is going to replace the Delta variant as much as Delta variant replace the Alpha, Beta variants,” said WHO Country Representative to the Philippines Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe in an interview on ABS-CBN News Channel.

“We could expect that the Omicron variant is going to replace the Delta Variant even this level of transmissibility that it has been showing at the early stages in the countries affected,” he added.

Based on the data of the Department of Health (DOH), there were 7,919 Delta variant cases, 3,630 Beta variant cases, and 3,168 Alpha variant cases, three Gamma variant cases, two Omicron cases, and one Lambda variant case in the Philippines as of Dec. 15.

Abeyasinghe said that the Omicron variant has already been detected in 77 countries.

“This is a reflection of how fast this variant can spread and that's exactly what we are seeing in countries that are now already reporting local transmission of Omicron,” he said.

“In fact, in some countries, they are predicting that Omicron will be the dominant strain in a matter of weeks,” he added.

The WHO official said that the Omicron variant might cause milder COVID-19, based on initial studies. However, the public should not let their guards down, he said.

“So, the fact that we should not get complacent that this is a mild infection, because with the high transmissibility— there will be huge numbers of people infected,” said Abeyasinghe.

“The virus will find every unprotected individual— unprotected in the sense that they have not had an infection and are immune or have not received the vaccine. And it's those individuals as I mentioned, elderly or immunocompromised or having comorbidities,” he said.

Commending PH

Abeyasinghe lauded the government’s efforts in delaying the entry of the Omicron variant. “We commend the DOH and the government for trying to reduce and delay the entrance of the variant,” he said.

The WHO official believes that the Philippines “in hindsight, has learned a lot especially during the outbreak caused by the Delta” variant.

Amid the threat of the Omicron variant, Abeyasinghe urged the Philippines to continue improving its measures against COVID-19 to prevent the spread of this new variant.

“Once it comes in, it's going to start spreading. So we have to be prepared for that. And that's what we've been talking to the DOH and our partners, including the National Task Force on preparing to minimize the impact of Omicron once it starts spreading in the Philippines,” he said.

Abeyasinghe said it is important to inoculate those people who remain unvaccinated.

“This is a little window of opportunity that we have, where we need to increase our preparedness to eventually deal with this and also use the opportunity to protect the most vulnerable because there are vulnerable people who still have no access to even a single dose of vaccine,” he said.

“What we do know is that the vaccines are still protective against severe disease and death...And thereby protect our hospital systems from being overwhelmed,” he added.

“If we want to protect people from dying, we have this window now, when we need to vaccinate as many of the elderly, comorbid people, immunocompromised people who have not had access to a vaccine,” he furthered.

He also emphasized the importance of following the minimum public health standards.