As coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases double day by day, the Department of Health (DOH) said on Monday, Jan. 3 that it is presuming that the wave of the COVID-19 variant Omicron has started to grow in the country.
"We are all presuming that the Omicron is here with us and the wave is starting to grow because of the numbers that are doubling day by day," DOH Undersecretary Leopoldo Vega said in an interview on ANC.
In the detection of Omicron, Vega agreed that genome sequencing in the country is not as fast and wide as in other countries and he mentioned that in Europe, genome sequencing is conducted to almost roughly 10 percent to 15 percent of all the positive samples, but in the country because of limited resources, only two percent or even one percent of samples are sequenced.
Meanwhile, Vega also stated that while Omicron is here, it's still not the dominant COVID-19 variant but in about three to four weeks it will be dominant in terms of 50 percent to 90 percent of the cases, overtaking the Delta variant. He added that the Delta variant will definitely still be around and will exist toe in toe with Omicron.
He said that COVID-19 cases will once again peak and that they currently have no knowledge when it will decelerate and press down. He stressed however, the importance of preparing for Omicron which he explained has high transmissibility based on studies, or roughly about 30 percent to 50 percent compared with the Delta variant, and that it can produce mild disease in very high volumes.
"It looks like the good news is it's all mild diseases but however this would be in a number of volume, the sheer volume of this will actually overwhelm most of our temporary treatment and monitoring facilities (TTMFs) later on," he said.
"So this is what we're trying to prepare not just the hospitals but also the TTMFs across the country because we only have about 115 TTMF beds all over and it means that if we have an exponential growth in this Omicron, we might have problems in terms of isolation or quarantining these COVID positive patients," he added.
He stated that while Metro Manila is under the Alert Level 3, healthcare utilization rate generally is still very low and that hospitals are still able to accommodate the number of admissions for mild and moderate for COVID-19 and it's still in a low risk position. Vega said that putting Metro Manila under Alert Level 3 is a proactive kind of stance.
"They are just cross-tabulating the average daily attack rate of the National Capital Region (NCR) and the two week growth rate. It means that it has been steadily increasing and it has been classified already as moderate risk for the NCR. However, the hospital utilization rate, nasa low risk position pa tayo in other words, there is still about less than 30 percent being occupied by the COVID-19 patients," he said.