DOH apologizes for confusion over waves of COVID-19 infections

The Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday apologized for the confusion over where the country is in its battle against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), clarifying that the Philippines is experiencing its “first wave of local community transmission.”

The statement came on the heels of Malacañang’s rejection of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III’s statement in a Senate hearing on Wednesday that the Philippines was already experiencing its second wave of infections. 

“The DOH confirms that, yes, we are in the first wave driven by a local community transmission,” Director IV Beverly Ho said in a virtual press briefing, explaining that local transmission started when Filipinos with no travel or exposure history contracted the respiratory disease.

“We apologize for the confusion that this has caused but we hope that this does not in any way distract us from what we need to do to change the course of this pandemic,” she added.

Duque likewise clarified his earlier statement in a meeting with the House Committee on Health, arguing that what he told the Senate was a "casual expression of an epidemiologic fact." 

"Indeed there was a first wave but very small which consisted of just three imported cases in January," the health chief said.

Duque’s initial statement on the supposed second wave was met with doubt by senators and government officials, including Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea and Interior Secretary Eduardo Año. 

The DOH earlier reported that the current stream of cases that the Philippines is facing peaked on March 31, when it confirmed 538 new infections. 

Epidemiologist Dr. John Wong, a member of a subgroup of the government’s inter-agency COVID-19 task force, explained on Wednesday that the country’s second wave is also its first major wave of infections with over 10,000 cases. 

The Philippines has logged 13,434 cases with 3,000 recoveries and 846 deaths as of Thursday afternoon. — LDF/BM, GMA News