Marcos sees COVID-19 public health emergency as ‘de facto' lifted —Herbosa

Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said Tuesday that only a formal order from President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. is needed to lift the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Herbosa said the President told him that it seems the public health emergency has already been lifted because of the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.

"Ang sabi niya (Marcos) kasi, de facto, parang nakalift na rin tayo diba? Optional na ang masking 'di ba? Hindi na inextend 'yung ano..." Herbosa told reporters.

"Wala pang formal, we're still waiting for the [order], eh de facto naman tayo, ang dami na, nagpunta ko sa mall ang dami na di nagmamask eh," he added.

According to Herbosa, among the marching orders of the President for him was to "recover from COVID and be able to get back the economy."

"Basically ni-reiterate ko ‘to kanina during our sectoral meeting that we now consider COVID among health care workers as similar to other illnesses like cough, colds, influenza," Herbosa said.

"But we still have to protect ourselves. I think the public health warning is you still have to protect yourself if you are vulnerable – and you still need to get the vaccine if you want to be specially protected," he added.

Last week, Herbosa said he would recommend lifting the country's COVID-19 state of public health emergency.

Then-President Rodrigo Duterte declared a state of public health emergency during the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.

Under Proclamation 922, the state of public health emergency would remain in force and effect until lifted or withdrawn by the President.

Herbosa, meanwhile, previously said that the alert level system would remain.

“The alert level system will stay because that’s a system like the typhoon signal that stays. But actually hindi na siya (that’s no longer a) public health emergency. Wala nang (there’s no) public health emergency,” he added.

In April, former DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the Philippines may only declare an end to its COVID-19 public health emergency if infections and hospital utilization remained manageable.

Vergeire previously said that healthcare workers’ One COVID allowance (OCA) will be affected should the public health emergency is lifted. She said the DOH is looking for solutions to continuously provide benefits to healthcare workers if this happens.

In May, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that COVID-19 no longer represented a global health emergency.

Last year, U.S. President Joe Biden said the pandemic was over. Like a number of other countries, the world's biggest economy has begun dismantling its domestic state of emergency for COVID, meaning it will stop paying for vaccines among other benefits.

Latest numbers

In the latest data of the DOH, fresh COVID-19 cases recorded during the week of June 26 to July 2 decreased by 20% to 2,747 compared to the previous week.

Based on the DOH’s latest bulletin, the accumulated cases logged from June 26 to July 2 were fewer compared to the 3,442 cases from June 19 to June 25.

This marked the sixth straight week of decreasing new weekly COVID-19 cases and the third consecutive week when less than 5,000 cases were logged, according to GMA Integrated News Research.

The number of new cases from June 26 to July 2 was also the lowest in 11 weeks.

Meanwhile, the DOH said 307 fresh COVID-19 infections were reported in the country on Monday, decreasing the active cases to 6,846 — the lowest number of active COVID-19 cases since April 30, 2023.

The total nationwide caseload is now at 4,165,869 while the number of total recoveries rose by 449 to 4,092,539. The death toll currently stands at 66,484.  —VAL, GMA Integrated News