THE virus that causes COVID-19 won’t go yet so the public should prepare and take care against its effects.
This was the warning issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region Director Takeshi Kasai after identifying countries in the region currently experiencing a surge in cases.
Included are South Korea with more than 286,000 new cases in the past 24 hours.
Australia follows with 58,229 new cases, Vietnam with 54,995 and Japan with 42,315.
Even New Zealand did not escape the surge of cases after registering 12,618 new cases.
Also, Malaysia was hit with the surge with 12,017 new cases, 6,341 in Singapore, 3,354 new cases in China and Lao People’s Democratic Republic with 2,272 cases recorded in the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Dr. Babatunde Olowokure, Director of the Health Security and Emergency of WHO Western Pacific said that some of these countries recorded a decline in the number of cases while other countries that have not yet experienced any surge are preparing as well.
Dr. Olowokure emphasized the importance of not just vaccination but also the administration of booster doses since the efficacy of vaccines wane after a few months.
He said countries should remain on alert and monitor everything to be able to respond against the threat of a surge of COVID-19 cases.
The WHO earlier reported that they are constantly monitoring the recombinant variants of COVID-19, including the variants called Omicron XD and XE.
Dr. Olowokure pointed out that as long as there is virus transmission, the SARS-CoV-2 virus will continue to evolve that will bring varying effects to people’s health.