Get COVID-19 booster shots during Holy Week break – expert

National Task Force against COVID-19 adviser Dr. Teodoro Herbosa. (Photo from his Facebook account)

MANILA, Philippines — People staying at home or traveling to the provinces during the Holy Week break should have booster shots, the medical adviser of the National Task Force Against COVID-19 said on Saturday.

“While it’s Holy Week and there’s no work, it may be good if we already get boosted. And by the way, even in the provinces that you will visit, you can get boosted there,” Dr. Ted Herbosa said during the Laging Handa public briefing.

For vacationers who want to take their booster shot in the provinces, Herbosa said they can proceed to vaccination sites and need only show their vaccination cards as proof that it had been more than three months since they received their primary series.

Herbosa, a former health undersecretary, said a wider booster coverage in the country would protect Filipinos from a surge caused by COVID-19 variants and subvariants that might slip into and spread in the country.

These include the Omicron XE, a recombinant variant containing characteristics from the Omicron’s BA.1 and BA.2 subvariants, which have already been detected in the United Kingdom and Thailand. Omicron XE is believed to be 10 percent more transmissible that the original Omicron variant.

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