THE Department of Health (DOH) assures the public that the country’s surveillance system in detecting new cases and other sub-lineages of COVID-19 remain efficient.
The DOH said the entry into the country of a variant of concern, according to experts, may possibly lead to an increase in COVID-19 cases, aside from the low percentage of booster shot vaccinations among the target population.
It was also proven that vaccination in the country is safe and effective that is why healthcare utilization is kept low, and the economy is slowly bouncing back and recover.
At present, there are 14 cases in the country that were identified with the BA.2.12.1 subvariant of the Omicron variant. Two are local cases from the National Capital Region (NCR) with no record of overseas travel and experienced only mild symptoms.
The other 12 cases were 11 foreign tourists and a Filipino from the tourist cluster of Palawan. The group came from a scuba diving exploration on April 23 but were asymptomatic and already discharged from isolation.
All are also fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and the 28 close contacts in the boat they used for the scuba diving exploration were tested negative of COVID-19 and were able to complete their quarantine.