DOH urges passengers of said flights to contact DOH, their LGUs if they experience symptoms after arrival in the PHL
(Eagle News) – The Department of Health is “verifying the test results and health status of all passengers” of the flights where the 10 Returning Overseas Filipinos (ROFs) who recently tested positive for the Omicron variant.
In a statement, the DOH said that this is “to determine if there are other confirmed cases or passengers who became symptomatic after arrival.”
“Travelers who have arrived in the Philippines through these flights may call the DOH COVID-19 Hotlines at (02) 8942 6843 or 1555, or their respective LGUs to report their status,” the DOH said on Thursday, January 6. It did not however post the flights were the 10 ROFs positive for Omicron had been on.
The DOH said it is also verifying the COVID-19 test results of all the passengers of these flights where the Omicron positive ROFs had boarded in coming to the Philippines.
-Detected confirmed Omicron cases rise to 43-
The confirmed detected Omicron variant cases in the country rose to 43 following the detection of 29 new Omicron variant cases, 19 of which are local cases with indicated addresses in Metro Manila, the DOH said on Thursday, January 6.
Of the 29 new Omicron variant cases, 19 are local cases while 10 are returning overseas Filipinos or ROFs.
The new cases were detected from only 48 samples sequenced last Sunday, January 2, 2021.
-19 local Omicron cases all from Metro Manila-
“Of the 19 local (Omicron) cases, 14 cases are still active, three cases have been tagged as recovered, while there are two cases whose outcome are still being verified,” the DOH said in a statement.
“The 29 Omicron variant cases are composed of 10 ROFs and 19 local cases with indicated addresses in the National Capital Region, bringing the total number of confirmed Omicron variant cases to 43,” it said.
Aside from the new Omicron cases, the University of the Philippines-Philippine Genome Center and the UP National Institutes of Health (UP-NIH) also detected 18 new Delta cases, while one had no assigned lineage. Of these 18 cases, 10 are local cases all with addresses in Metro Manila. The other eight were ROFs.
The latest sequencing run was composed of samples from 19 Returning Overseas Filipinos (ROFs) and 29 local cases from areas with case clusters.
On Thursday, January 6, the DOH reported a high of 17,220 new COVID-19 cases, and a new record-high of COVID-19 positivity rate at 36.9 percent.
In the latest DOH case bulletin, the total active cases have also risen to 56,561 or two percent of the total COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began in March 2020.
(Eagle News Service)