The Department of Health (DOH) encouraged the public not to hold social gatherings or family reunions during the celebration of the Chinese New Year on Feb. 1 to prevent the further rise in coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that such activities may be a possible source of COVID-19 transmission.
“We still remind our citizens na yun pong magkakaroon ng mga gatherings or reunions because of this, sana po ay ipagpaliban muna natin dahil mataas pa rin po ang kaso (We still remind our citizens who are planning to have gatherings or reunions because of this , I hope we will postpone it first because the number of cases is still high),” said Vergeire.
“Kahit po tayo ay bakunado, maari po tayong mahawa at makapanghawa...ipostpone muna po natin para makatulong po tayo na further hindi tumaas ang mga kaso sa ating bansa (Even if we are vaccinated, we can be infected and infect others... We should postpone these activities so that we can help not to further increase the number of cases in our country),” she added.
As of this writing, there were a total of 291,618 active COVID-19 cases nationwide. Since 2020, the Philippines has already registered 3.35 million confirmed cases, of which, 3.01 million have already recovered, while 53,309 died.