THE incidence of COVID-19 in the Philippines remains manageable despite the reported slight increase in positivity rate, according to an infectious disease expert. Solante explained that the country is still in stable condition.
“The fact that we have no signs that hospitals will be filled. And if you look at the data, even though the cases are increasing, the deaths are not increasing. The severe COVID-19 cases are not increasing, and the number of people going to the hospitals is not increasing either,” Dr. Rontgene Solante said during a public briefing.
“These are good signs. That means even if there is an increase in cases our bodies can handle it, unlike when the Delta was the variant of concern. In short, in general, our cases are manageable and it has not been causing disruptions in our life,” he added.
Data released by OCTA Research fellow Dr. Guido David showed that thePhilippines’ positivity rate — or the percentage of people who werefound positive for COVID among the total number of individualstested — went up from 11.7 percent as of April 25, to 12.9 percent last April 26.
Solante also that the increase in COVID cases may be possible due to the recent detection of the first case of Omicron subvariant XBB.1.16, also called “Arcturus.”
“Based on the WHO’s classification, this XBB.1.16 has a growth advantage. This means that it spreads faster because of the mutations in the spike protein. It means more infections, and second, even in populations that have been vaccinated, it can still bind to our tissues. So that means we can still get an infection,” Solante said.
“That is the reason why in some countries that have XBB.1.16, cases were seen to increase slightly. However, the important thing here is, I think, in those countries with increased cases, there were no signs that this virus or a variant of interest caused severe COVID. So most of the cases are mild,” the physician explained.
According to Solante, the symptoms of Arcturus are similar to other COVID variants, although some patients in other countries had sore eyes.
The Department of Health earlier announced the detection of the first case of Arcturus—a variant under monitoring by the WHO and European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)— in Region 6.
Solante encouraged the public to continue wearing face masks to prevent the spread of the viral disease.
He surmised that the decline in COVID deaths globally may be due to the increase in vaccination rates and the presence of antiviral agents.
“The fact that the Omicron variant only infects the upper respiratory tract and causes less severe infections, that is a major factor why the COVID virus is weakening. Second, I think our vaccination rate is also increasing. There is still ample protection, there are still antibodies, and that antibody and protection prevent severe infections,” he said.
“There are also interventions like the presence of antiviral agents that, more or less, people can get access. So that when they will have symptoms they will not be able to proceed to the severe infections. So these are all the three important aspects why we were able or the significant number of deaths is low for the past months and the hospitalization rate was also low,” he added.
The WHO said nearly there were 5.3 million new infections and more than 48,000 deaths reported from January 23 to February 19, representing a decline of 89 percent and 62 percent, respectively, compared to the figures over the past 28 days.
Meanwhile, more than 757 million confirmed cases and over 6.8 million deaths have been reported globally as of February 19.