No harsher curbs despite arrival of new virus variant

MANILA, Philippines — The government will not impose harsher curbs on communities for now, following the discovery of the more transmissible coronavirus variant from the United Kingdom in the country, officials said on Thursday.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said an escalation of the general community quarantine would depend on an increase in the daily average attack rates, two-week growth rate, and hospital and health-care capacity system use.

“As of now, we don’t have that kind of signal yet to elevate the current community quarantine [status],” Duque said at a news briefing.

But it won’t hurt if local governments exercise their power to impose limited lockdowns if there is a surge of cases in their communities, he added.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque also noted that quarantine classifications are set monthly by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, and said any changes to these would depend on the two-week attack rate and critical care capacity.

Travel ban

“There is a possibility that more people would get sick because the new variant is more contagious. But if they would not be hospitalized because their cases are mild, it is possible that the quarantine restrictions won’t change,” Roque said.

The Department of Health (DOH) confirmed on Wednesday that the UK variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 had been detected in a Filipino who traveled recently to the United Arab Emirates.

Duque said he had recommended the inclusion of the United Arab Emirates in the list of countries subject to travel restrictions in the Philippines.

The government has banned the entry of foreigners from countries that have reported cases of the UK and South African variants of the COVID-19 agent, the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Duque explained that the UAE was not included in the travel ban list earlier because it had not reported cases of the UK variant.

The DOH did not have any basis to say that the variant was present in the UAE, he said.

“But now we have the evidence to tell them, ‘you have the UK variant now,’” he said.

Duque said he had directed health personnel to visit the other passengers on the Emirates flight that brought the patient with the UK variant who had not been responding to contact tracing calls.

The DOH has been trying to trace the movements of the other passengers on the Emirates flight, he said.

“I have given them the directive to visit the people who are not picking up the phone but whose addresses are available. They will visit them physically,” he said.

Active transmission in Metro

The Octa research group reported on Thursday that there was now active transmission of the COVID-19 virus in Metro Manila, after the reproduction rate of the bug increased in December.

Octa’s Butch Ong said the reproduction rate of the virus in Metro Manila now was 1.10 to 1.17, up from below 1 in December.

“This means it is now being actively transmitted in the community,” Ong said at a news briefing.

He said the reproduction rate in December was below 1 because the testing laboratories were operating at only 45 percent capacity.

Now they have resumed full operations, and this means the reproduction rate of the virus is more reflective of the actual situation, Ong said.

In Metro Manila, he said, the cities that have reported increase in cases are Quezon City, Manila, Pasig, Parañaque and Marikina.

Outside the metropolis, he said, increases have been reported by Davao del Sur, Isabela, Quezon, Misamis Oriental, Pangasinan, Agusan del Sur, Negros Oriental, Cebu City and Zamboanga del Sur.

Ong said, however, that he could not tell whether the increases meant coronavirus infections had reached “surge level.”

New infections

On Thursday, the DOH logged 1,912 additional infections, raising the overall number of confirmed COVID-19 cases to 494,605.

It said 746 more patients had recovered, bringing the total number of COVID-19 survivors to 459,252. But the death toll rose to 9,739 with the deaths of 40 more patients.

The deaths and recoveries left the country with 25,614 active cases, of which 85 percent were mild, 6.4 percent asymptomatic, 0.48 percent moderate, 2.9 percent severe, and 5.2 percent critical. —WITH A REPORT FROM PATRICIA DENISE M. CHIU