Hello, new subvariant. What now?
Local transmission of a more transmissible Omicron subvariant is confirmed nearly two weeks after national elections. (Photo: Jan Michael Garcia via Rappler)
The Department of Health confirmed the local transmission of the more contagious Omicron subvariant BA.2.12.1 last Tuesday. It was first detected in the country in Manila and Puerto Princesa in Palawan on May 13.
Last week, there were 14 reported cases. Of the 14, 11 were foreign travelers and one, a local case in Palawan. The two from Manila did not have any travel history outside the Philippines. As of Tuesday, three more cases from Western Visayas—two local and one, fully vaccinated, returning from the US—were added to the count.
Basically, we’re just trying to say two things here: One, looser travel restrictions have something to do with local transmission. Two, it can't be helped with the way BA.2.12.1 is.
BA.2.12.1 is notorious for its ability to evade immune response from previous COVID-19 infections and vaccines. It’s also believed to spread easily by up to 27% more than BA.2, the dominant subvariant in the Philippines and the rest of the world.
BA.2.12.1 is different from the other Omicron subvariant BA.2.12, which was also detected in the Philippines in April.
So what now?
Nearly two weeks after national elections, the DOH reports COVID cases were down 0.3% from the week before. This, despite a countrywide ruckus consisting of hundreds of thousands (a million, even?) attending political rallies to cap off campaign season, and the same people waiting hours in line to cast their votes due to broken vote counting machines (1,800, to be exact).
We’ve yet to see if these would result in more cases by next week’s bulletin. The bigger question is: Would people get tested?
Though BA.2.12.1 is more contagious, it hasn’t been proven to cause more severe disease either. Maybe people have decided that a mild cough and runny nose are not much to be afraid of anymore. Filipinos have been relatively lucky to have developed a hybrid immunity after over two years of consistent surges and vaccinations, but with COVID there’s still no telling when or if a mild infection might just bite us back in the ass*s. Just ask the world’s first long haulers.
A breakthrough solution, perhaps, is to keep up with the evolving virus. According to experts, COVID vaccines should be updated more quickly than flu vaccines are each year. Done is better than perfect, they said, as even an imperfect match can still boost immunity against the virus.
But first, more people need to get boosted. In the Philippines, nearly two million Moderna vaccines are expiring in two weeks, so officials need to do something about that too.
