THE Department of Health (DOH) has said the Philippines will need to meet three criteria before the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) situation in the country is considered as endemic.
DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said: “We can only declare here in the country that we are already at that stage of endemicity when we fulfill all of these conditions.”
Vergeire said that first, the number of COVID-19 cases must already be at acceptable level.
She also said that the number of deaths due to the virus should already be stable, and lastly, the country must have a high booster shot coverage.
Vergeire said that while the country has met the first two criteria, it has yet to comply with the last condition.
“As we can see, we have a stable number of cases, the number of deaths is not that high anymore, but the booster shots coverage still needs lot of work to bring up that wall of immunity,” said Vergeire in an interview last Friday.
For the period of September 5 to 11, the country has been seeing over 2,000 new cases per day, along with a total of 300 reported deaths.
A total of 72.77 million Filipinos have also been fully vaccinated, but only 18.55 million of them have received booster shots as of last week.
Last Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) gave its most optimistic assessment of the two-and-a-half-year-old health crisis, saying the end is already in sight for the COVID-19 pandemic.
