Philippine official says Omicron cases up rapidly

Xinhua

11th Jan, 2022. 10:40 am
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MANILA, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) — The highly infectious Omicron coronavirus variant has raced ahead of Delta and is now the dominant variant in the Philippines, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said late Monday night.

In a pre-recorded meeting with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte aired late Monday night, Duque said that the newest genome sequencing showed over 60 percent of samples are Omicron variant cases.

He said that from the genome sequencing conducted on Jan. 3, around 60.42 percent, or 29 of 48 samples were Omicron cases, while 18 or 37.5 percent were Delta.

The Southeast Asian country reported 33,169 new COVID-19 infections on Monday, a new record daily spike. It now has nearly 3 million confirmed cases, including 52,293 deaths.

The country has experienced the fourth wave of COVID-19 infections since the outbreak in 2020.