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No need to raise alert level

By J.Lo

"Right now, I don't think so, because we have metrics on when to raise alert level," infectious disease expert Dr. Edsel Salvana said during Palace public briefing believes there is no need to raise alert level in face of rising number of new COVID-19 cases in the country.

Salvana issued remark when asked if alert level should be raised if cases continue to increase after the country logged more than 4,000 new COVID-19 cases for four consecutive days.

He said country's healthcare utilization rate must breach 50% while average daily attack rate (ADAR) must go over 18.

"Our health utilization is still good, and the ADAR is still below 18, so those are the parameters. Because the number of cases is not as important as it was before, we had a lot of severe cases before but now most of us are vaccinated, others have been boosted, we have medicine, and we know how to prevent this. Its impact on healthcare utilization is more important," he said.

The National Capital Region and several other areas will remain under a COVID-19 Alert Level 1 from August 1 to 15.

Meanwhile, he advised public to remain calm, saying there is no evidence that Omicron subvariant BA.2.75 is "taking over."

Last week, the Philippines detected its first two cases of the Omicron subvariant BA.2.75.

"It is important to continue to monitor closely but not panic…right now there's no evidence that it is taking over…it's here and we will monitor but as far as we are concerned, vaccines that we use are still effective in preventing severe COVID," he said.

According to Salvana, government is looking into whether subvariant may cause surge.

"It's not clear…there's clear transmission advantage…they are calculating these transmission advantages…there are lot of external factors," he said.

Salvana said there were other factors such as compliance with the wearing of face masks and vaccination and booster rates.

"So may preliminary study na mukhang merong chance na mas transmissible ito pero hindi pa ito nako-confirm and like I said, things that we do for other Omicron subvariants weren't against this as far as we know based on the evidence," he said.

Meanwhile, Salvana said one of the reasons for increase in cases can be attributed to decreasing compliance with MPHS.

"The DOH said it seems that there is a decrease in compliance with our minimum health standards…this is one of the reasons why number of cases is increasing,what is important is that we don't get tired…use face masks so we can protect each other, especially vulnerable population" Salvana concluded.

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