The LRT-2 Araneta Center-Cubao Station in Quezon City on April 25, 2023. Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News/File
MANILA — The pandemic is not yet over, the Department of Health said Tuesday, following the World Health Organization's lifting of the public health emergency status on COVID-19.
The UN health agency declared last week that COVID-19 no longer constituted a global health emergency.
"Even though the WHO has already lifted the public health emergency of international concern status, hindi po nila sinabing tapos na ang pandemya," DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a press briefing.
(They didn't say that the pandemic is over.)
"Even though the public health emergency of international concern has been lifted, we can't be complacent at this point," she added.
The WHO first declared the so-called public health emergency of international concern over the crisis on Jan. 30, 2020.
That was just weeks after the mysterious new viral disease was first detected in China and when fewer than 100 cases and no deaths had been reported outside that country.
Vergeire urged Filipinos to continue using multiple layers of protection, such as wearing of masks, isolating when sick, getting vaccinated and boosted.
In the first week of May, the Philippines logged 9,465 COVID-19 cases or an average of 1,352 daily infections.
The latest tally was 112 percent higher compared to the previous week.
So far, the country has 12,161 active COVID-19 cases.
Courtesy of DOH
— With a report from Agence France-Presse