THE independent OCTA Research yesterday said the Omicron variant is causing the “highly irregular” trend in coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in the country.
OCTA fellow Dr. Guido David, in a televised public briefing, noted that numbers have alternately gone up and down over the past months, “ unlike in the past, like during the Alpha, Delta waves, wherein when we had downward trends, it was continuous.”
David said the fluctuating trend is likely due to the characteristics of the prevailing Omicron variant.
“Before, when we had Delta or even Alpha variant infection, we are already immune against them. Now, with Omicron, we can still have breakthrough infection. So, it is more difficult,” he explained.
“We are hoping that (a) downtrend will continue. (But) so far, over the past months, we are seeing very highly irregular waves,” David added.
David noted data from the OCTA which shows that 12 provinces are currently seeing increase in their positivity rates.
These include Tarlac (51.8% from 34.8%), Camarines Sur (46.2% from 37.1%), Zambales (33.6% from 20.4%), Laguna (22.2% from 17.2%), Bataan (18.3% from 12.8%), Misamis Oriental (17.2% from 9.2%), Davao del Sur (13% from 12.9%), Iloilo (12.8% from 9%), Batangas (12.6% from 11.2%), Benguet (10.5% from 9.5%), Negros Occidental (7.8% from 5.7%), and Cebu (5.9% from 5.8%).
On the other hand, OCTA data also showed that there are seven areas, including the National Capital Region (NCR), where positivity rates are on a decline.
These are South Cotabato (26.2% from 28.3%), Cavite (22.6% from 23.1%), Rizal (21.2% from 25%), Pampanga (17.3% from 19.5%), Bulacan (17.2% from 17.7%), NCR (15% from 17.9%), and Pangasinan (14.1% from 14.2%).
“When the positivity rate goes down, we know that cases are also going down,” said David.
The World Health Organization has set a threshold of 5 percent for positivity rate.
Nevertheless, the OCTA fellow said the current trend is not considered as alarming or should be a cause for concern because healthcare utilization rates remain low.
“This means that majority of the cases are mild and asymptomatic. There are only a few severe cases. This is why even if cases go up or down, healthcare utilization remains low,” David said.
The Department of Health (DOH) yesterday said the country has yet to detect a case of the XBB strain of COVID-19, also known as Omicron subvariant BA.2.10.
In a brief statement, the DOH said that as of October 13, “we have not detected the said variant in the Philippines.”
It assured the public that surveillance activities are continuing across the country. “The DOH, in partnership with our local sequencing facilities, is continuously conducting surveillance to monitor the importation of this variant and other emerging variants,” it said.
According to the DOH, the XBB strain is a recombinant of BJ.1 (BA.2.10.1 sublineage) and BM.1.1.1 (BA.2.75 sublineage).
Initial studies suggest that the new sublineage shows higher immune evasion ability than the BA.5.
The XBB strain has been detected in several countries, such as Australia, Bangladesh, Denmark, India, Japan, Singapore, and the United States since August.
In its last latest genome sequencing, the DOH was able to detect 605 additional BA.5 cases, 18 additional BA.4 cases, and 5 additional BA.2.75 cases.
A total 94 additional cases of the Delta variant were also detected in the same sequencing batch.
