(Eagle News) – The entire country will continue to remain under Alert Level 2 until the end of the year as the government repealed the community quarantine guidelines and placed the entire country under the alert level system effective today, Thursday, December 16.
Cabinet Secretary and acting presidential spokesperson Karlo Nograles made the announcement as the Department of Health announced the detection of two Omicron variant cases on Wednesday, December 15.
He that the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) approved the recommendation to continue to place the entire country under Alert Level 2 from Thursday, December 16, until December 31.
With this, Nograles said that the IATF had repealed the “guidelines on the implementation of community quarantine” in the country.
“Ini-repeal ng IATF ang Guidelines on the Implementation of Community Quarantine in the Philippines, as amended, at ang pag-adopt ng IATF sa Guidelines on the Nationwide Implementation of the Alert Level System for COVID-19 Response, as amended,” he said.
This is contained in IATF Resolution No. 154-A dated Dec. 14 signed by Nograles as IATF co-chair.
“The IATF approves the recommendation of the sub-Technical Working Group on Data Analytics in placing all provinces, highly urbanized cities (HUCs), and independent component cities (ICCs) under Alert Level 2 from 16 December 2021, until 31 December 2021,” the resolution read.
“RESOLVED FURTHER, that with the nationwide rollout of the Alert Level System and in compliance with Executive Order No. 151 (s.2021), the IATF adopts the Guidelines on the Nationwide Implementation of Alert Level System for COVID-19 Response, as amended,” the resolution added.
The DOH, the University of the Philippines – Philippine Genome Center (UP-PGC), and the University of the Philippines – National Institutes of Health (UP-NIH) reported that two imported cases of the Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant of concern were detected from the 48 samples sequenced on December 14, 2021.
The two Omicron variant cases were both incoming travelers. One was a Returning Overseas Filipino (ROF) who arrived from Japan on December 1, 2021 via Philippine Airlines flight number PR 0427. The second case was a Nigerian national who arrived from Nigeria on November 30, 2021 via Oman Air with flight number WY 843.
Aside from these two Omicron cases, there were 33 positive for the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant while 13 had no lineage assigned. The latest sequencing run was composed of samples from 21 Returning Overseas Filipinos (ROFs), one foreign national, and 26 local cases from areas with case clusters.
(Eagle News Service)