Omicron didn’t cause COVID-19 surge in Quezon, says health official

LUCENA CITY – The sudden spike of new COVID-19 cases in Quezon province was not caused by the highly transmissible Omicron variant, the head of the Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO) said Monday.

“Quezon province has no Omicron case,” Dr. Tiong Eng Roland Tan, IPHO officer-in-charge, said in an online interview Monday.

Tan attributed the steady surge of new cases in the province to several factors.

“Multi-factoral. Dahil naging maluwag. Ang interzonal movement ay maluwag, madaming gatherings ang naganap dahil sa holiday season (Because it became more relaxed. The interzonal movement became more relaxed, there was also a lot of gatherings that happened during the holiday season),” he explained.

On January 9, the IPHO reported 99 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the number of active cases to 515.

As of Monday, January 10, Quezon has recorded 506 new cases, a marked increase from last December’s tally of 64 infections and 211 in November.

On December 22, the IPHO listed only nine active COVID-19 cases, the lowest single-day tally in recent months of 2021.

The newly infected patients have been placed in several hospitals in the province and local government isolation centers while some are under home quarantine.

The tally for the day listed one recovered patient in San Antonio town and another death from the island municipality of Quezon.

Of 41 localities in the province, only eight towns have no recorded COVID-19 cases as of January 9.

The towns with active virus carriers jumped to 33 from only six on December 27.

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