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Webinar series tackle Omicron


DAVAO CITY, January 19 (PIA) - Omicron variant was immediately declared as variant of concern by the World Health Organization in just 2 days after it was discovered in South Africa with a spike protein that has 30 mutations compared to Delta which has 10 mutations as Special Adviser to the National Task Force on COVID 19 Dr. Teodoro Herbosa bared during the Stop COVID Deaths online community webinar series, last Friday.


“That’s the fastest ever that a new variant was immediately declared as a variant of concern, Dr. Herbosa said.


The fast phase mutation of the Omicron variant led the government officials to declare a variant of concern due to the surge of cases happening in many countries. The Omicron variant has been plaguing in the US which had 1.1 million cases a day, United Kingdom is suffering 150,000 cases a day and now the new variant was pestering many regions in our country leading to the declaration of alert level 3.


Even before the DOH declare Omicron caused the surge of cases in the country, Dr. Herbosa believed and divulged that it was Omicron that currently mutating based on its behavior. 


“It’s really highly transmissible but other good things that seems to be mild. People are not being hospitalized. People are staying in their homes and they are recovering very quickly. And that depends also in the vaccination rate in the country as Dr. Herbosa observed while monitoring the situation and its effect to the human body.


Vaccinated individuals will recover quickly if the human bodies were infected compared to unvaccinated who are susceptible to the virus that would probably worsening the case and stress the health system of the country. 


Dr. Herbosa urged those unvaccinated Filipino people to get vaccinated and bared there’s still 62 million population Filipinos either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.  Plenty of vaccines available which are over 90 million doses on stock pile.  


There are 50 million doses for the Pfizer pediatric supposed to be delivered by the end of January allowing to start the vaccination for 5-11 years by February this year which is really intended for the public to protect them from further mutation.


On the other hand, Senior Technical Adviser EpiMetrics, Inc. Epidemiologist Dr. John Wong described COVID19 cases as holiday surge in the Philippines since the surge started in Dec 26. By then Dr. Wong cannot really determine if it is really Omicron.


Infectious Disease and Internal Medicine Specialist and a UP Medical Alumni Society in America Dr. Franco Felizarta described the Omicron variant was highly transmissible 70x in the human bodies but 10x slower in the lungs and there's only 3 days incubation period. 


Meanwhile, Experts also recommended to have boosters as early as 3 months, to wear mask properly, to priorities A1, A3 and A4 group and those elderly with comorbidities and to ramp up the vaccination rollout in the country and to change mindset and that is to isolate before testing if symptoms occurs. (PIA XI/Elvira Suico)


 

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