Solante sees 3K to 5K COVID-19 cases by end of Christmas holidays

The Philippines is expected to post around 3,000 to 5,000 COVID-19 cases by the end of the Christmas holidays next year which is a far better situation compared with last year’s figure, infectious disease expert Dr. Rontgene Solante said Friday.

“Our situation now is more stable because a lot of us are vaccinated and already had booster shots. And despite the fact that we have variants [of Omicron], our hospitals are not being filled with COVID-19 patients because we have population immunity and if there are cases, there are mild, except in vulnerable population where an infection [of COVID-19 go with other [complications],” Solante said during the public briefing.

“Unlike last year when we had 25,000 to 30,000 cases [after the holidays] due to the Omicron variant...we will have 3,000 to 5,000 cases more or less which is [a] manageable [figure]. I don’t think we will be reaching 5,000 cases,” he added.

Based on government records, at least 73.7 million Filipinos are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Of the said number, 21 million got a booster shot in addition to their primary doses.

The Department of Health earlier said the new Omicron subvariant BF.7 is a BA.5 sublineage initially flagged by the researchers due to its potential to be more transmissible than the wild type BA.5 and immune evading properties.

The DOH, however, clarified that currently available evidence for BF.7 does not suggest any differences in disease severity and/or clinical manifestations compared to the original Omicron variant.

Solante, however, said there is still a need to give bivalent COVID-19 vaccines to the Filipinos for stronger protection against ever evolving variants of the coronavirus.

“The next vaccine [we should give] should be the bivalent vaccine because it specifically targets the Omicron variant. We know BF.7  is a sublineage of Omicron, so it also follows that even if we don’t have much data on BF.7, it can also be neutralized by the bivalent vaccine against COVID-19,” Solante added.

The Health Department earlier said that it hopes to administer the bivalent vaccine to the population by January to March 2023. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News