Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 11)— The Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday said there will be a shift in the government’s COVID-19 response strategy to address the high transmission rates and increasing infections in the country.
In a media forum, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the government will focus on community interventions to help curb the virus spread in localities.
She said testing will primarily help in determining the proper clinical management for high-risk or vulnerable patients. Contact tracing, on the other hand, would not be prioritized for now.
“Contact tracing is not that much prioritized anymore because we know that in each household, the possibility or the likelihood that there is one positive individual is very high,” Vergeire explained.
“Our testing before, what we [were] doing before to detect who are positive so that we can immediately isolate and quarantine, becomes of second nature right now, because we’d like to prioritize our A1,A2, and A3, these are the vulnerable sectors in our population, for clinical management,” she added.
Last week, the country’s pandemic response task force announced shortened quarantine days for fully vaccinated healthcare workers in a bid to ensure enough manpower to handle the spike in coronavirus infections. The new policy, however, was met with backlash as medical groups questioned its safety.
READ: Govt defends shorter quarantine, isolation for health workers
Vergeire said the government is also studying the possible imposition of the protocol for the general public.
“That is our policy shift right now… there are discussions of shortening quarantine and shortening isolation for the general public and the healthcare workers, of course, adopting science and evidence. Of course, the last one would be ramping up vaccination,” the Health official added.
For the past days, the Philippines has been logging record-high numbers in new daily cases — with the tally breaching the 33,000 mark. Nationwide infections have topped three million, according to the latest DOH bulletin.
