World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that the Philippine government move from pandemic to endemic in terms of COVID-19 response.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said that in doing this shift, it must be clear that actions must align from pandemic to endemic plan.
The endemic plan constitutes the twin ultimate goals of not breaching the red line or 70 percent of the health system capacity, and protecting the vulnerable groups including the senior citizens and those with co-morbidities.
“To aid this shift towards endemic plan, we have to ensure that we sit down and push the cases down so that we do not reach the red line and overwhelm our health system. Thus, we also need to protect the vulnerable groups since this is where severe and critical cases needing hospitalizations, as well as deaths mainly come,” he said during the launching of the second round of the Bayanihan Bakunahan National Vaccination Days in Subic town.
Meanwhile, the cabinet official enumerated the key interventions that will aid in the endemic plan.
He stressed that the primary intervention is to improve vaccine trajectory by being aggressive in terms of vaccination and communication.
“Aside from the national government, local government units (LGUs), and international development partners, the media has a major role to play here because you are the ones to explain to people on the ground what the variants are and why it is important to get vaccinated,” he said.
Duque also cited the importance of disciplined compliance to public health and social safety measures like masking, proper hygiene, and social distancing as part of the response to combat transmissibility of the virus.
He said that although important, vaccine is not just the key since it only cuts down transmission of Alpha variant by 60%, Delta variant by 40%, and probably much lower in Omicron variant.
The DOH official said that part of the interventions also is the improvement of health systems capacity, adding that the national government continues to expand the capacity for the worst case-scenario because there is no room for complacency given the presence of the Omicron variant in the country.
He also cited the role of LGUs in the early detection of the virus and targeted response by doing active case finding, isolating immediately, testing, and contact tracing in order to cut the chains of transmission.
“The prevent, detect, isolate, treat, reintegrate strategy is crucial and proven to be very effective. Otherwise, you have more people going out and spreading the virus which may lead to another surge,” Duque said.
In addition, he also cited that the government is intensifying international border control measures by red listing countries with recorded surges or variants of concern.
“We are trying to stop entry of Omicron from country of origin. Despite that, it entered the country via two inbound travelers detected to be carriers of the variant. Luckily, we managed to stop them at the border. We were able to isolate the carriers of Omicron variant immediately and hopefully, this will not be introduced to the communities,” the secretary said.
With this, he urged the public to cooperate in observing the minimum public health standards and in the vaccination program as these are the keys to recovery as a nation and of the economy. (PIA 3)
