The Davao Region. Map courtesy of Google
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 20 January) – The presence of the highly transmissible Omicron variant COVID-19 in Davao Region came as no surprise and its detection was only just a matter of time, a health official said.
The variant might have been circulating in the region for quite a time now based on the finding of the Department of Health-Davao on Thursday that its first confirmed cases got infected as early as December 2021, Dr. Rachel Joy Pasion, head of the Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit of DOH-Davao, said in a virtual press briefer on Thursday.
On Thursday, DOH-Davao reported five Omicron variant cases. Of these cases, three were tested in the region and the two others were tested in the National Capital Region and Clark, Pampanga.
Of the three who were tested in the region, one was a returning overseas Filipino who arrived from Singapore last Dec. 18. The two others were local cases – a 28-year-old female and a 62-year-old male from Davao Occidental – who were swabbed on Dec. 11 and 16, respectively.
Pasion said they are still investigating if the two local cases belong to the same household.
She said the increased mobility of the people during the holiday season might have spread the variant in the region.
“Actually, we cannot deny the fact that, maybe, this Omicron variant has really been circulating here in our region because of the mobility of the people during the holiday season,” she said.
She surmised that the exponential increase in COVID-19 cases in the region could already be blamed on the Omicron, which is more transmissible compared with other known variants of concern.
According to DOH-Davao, the region reported 1,428 cases on January 19, bringing the total cases to 109,888 with 4,989 active, 100,985 recoveries, and 3,914 deaths.
Davao City, considered the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mindanao, recorded 1,197 new cases on Thursday, bringing the total cases to 57,980 with 3,698 active, 52,480 recoveries, and 1,802 deaths.
“Since December (last year), we have local cases from other regions and we’re basically waiting for a time to come that it would be detected through whole genome sequence,” Pasion said.
She said the implementation of Prevention, Detection, Isolation, Treatment, and Rehabilitation Strategies for COVID-19 or PDITR and the observance of minimum public health standards could help against the spread of more infections.
“If there is a big jump in our cases, we can attribute this to Omicron. We have local cases of Omicron detected in our region, so we assume that, maybe, there are Omicron variant (cases) circulating here aside from those we detected,” she said. (Antonio L. Colina IV/MindaNews)
