The Department of Health (DOH) announced on Thursday that the Philippine Genome Center has detected 29 new cases of the highly contagious Omicron variant including 19 local cases from Metro Manila.
“The 29 Omicron variant cases are composed of 10 returning overseas Filipinos and 19 local cases with indicated addresses in the National Capital Region, bringing the total number of confirmed Omicron variant cases to 43,” the DOH said in a statement.
The DOH added that out of the 19 local cases, 14 are still active. Three cases have already been recovered while two are still being verified.
It added that contact tracing is ongoing for those who have been with the flights of the Omicron cases from abroad. No flight details were disclosed.
The DOH has yet to declare community transmission of the Omicron variant, but health officials say that there is already a local transmission.
OCTA Research Group said that new COVID-19 infections in Metro Manila alone could reach 10,000 to 11,000 on Thursday and more than 20,000 thereafter.
“The country is likely to exceed 20k new cases,” OCTA research fellow Guido David said on Twitter.
Metro Manila’s positivity rate on January 4 is at 45%.
“This projects to 15000 to 16000 new Covid-19 cases in the Philippines on January 6, with 10000 to 11000 new cases in the NCR,” David said.
“And the surge has not peaked yet. The country is expected to exceed 20000 new cases by January 7,” he added.
The country recorded 10,775 new cases on Wednesday.
“The top regions with cases in the recent two weeks were NCR (7,420 or 69%), Region 4-A (1,719 or 16%) and Region 3 (798 or 7%),” DOH said.
Metro Manila, Cavite, Laguna and Bulacan are now under Alert Level 3 due to a rapid increase in cases.
