The Department of Health (DOH) on Friday said that they are yet to receive an official notice following the pronouncement of World Health Organization (WHO) country representative to the Philippines Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe that there is “some degree of community transmission” of the Covid-19 variants in Metro Manila and other provinces.
In an online media forum, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said there is still no official statement from the WHO that has been received by the DOH.
“But of course there has been this assumption already even before dahil nakikita natin tumataas ang bilang ng mga taong nai-identify natin with these variants [because there is an increase in the number of people detected with these variants],” Vergeire said referring to the B117 (United Kingdom) and B135 (South Africa) variants which was mentioned by WHO official.
However, Vergeire allayed fears of the public, saying whatever variant there is, the public should observe the minimum public health standards to protect themselves.
“We protect ourselves by complying with health protocols and having ourselves vaccinated,” Vergeire stressed.
Meanwhile, after recording low number of cases in the past days, the DOH on Friday logged 8,748 additional infections. The country’s Covid -19 cases stood at 1,209,154.
There were also 3,017 recoveries and 187 deaths.
Of the total number of cases, 4.4 percent (53,770) are active, 93.9 percent (1,134,818) have recovered, and 1.70 percent (20,566) have died.
Moreover, 122 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
All laboratories were operational on May 26, 2021 but 4 were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.
Based on data in the last 14 days, the 4 non-reporting labs contribute, on average, 1.1 percent of samples tested and 2.8 percent of positive individuals.
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