‘Covid cases may rise 9-fold if UK variant spreads’
![](696" height="443" srcset="https://www.phbiznews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/news03-122220-696x443-1.jpg 696w, https://businessmirror.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/news03-122220.jpg 1392w" alt="" title="news03-122220" data-src="https://www.phbiznews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/news03-122220-696x443-1.jpg)
THE number of infected cases in the country could increase 9-fold by the end of the month if the UK variant of Covid-19 becomes more widespread.
“In certain cities in NCR [National Capital Region], we’ll see if the UK variant becomes the dominant strain, meaning it infects more than 50 percent of the cases, we can have 9 times more cases after a month,” Jun Wong of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) technical working group on data analytics said in an interview with PTV on Wednesday.
Wong issued the statement affirming the projection of the University of the Philippines-OCTA Research that nationwide new Covid-19 cases per day could reach 5,000 to 6,000 by end of March if the current trend of infection continues.
From March 5 to 8, 2021, the number of new Covid-19 cases per day nationwide exceeded 3,000.
On Tuesday, it decreased to 2,668 before rising again to 2,886 the following day.
Health experts noted one of the factors for the surge will be the spread of the new variants of Covid-19 in the country.
Currently, DOH is closely monitoring the spread of the Covid-19 variant from the UK (B117) and South Africa (B1351), which are more transmissible than the usual variety of the disease.
Last week, a total of 58 cases of South African variant and 118 cases of UK variant were confirmed by health officials.
WHO assessment
In a related development, Anna Ong-Lim of the Department of Health (DOH) Technical Advisory Group said the World Health Organization (WHO) is now looking into the new variants of Covid-19 detected in Cebu last month.
Lim said the reported new “variant under investigation,” which were named E484K and N501Y, were already reported to WHO.
“This was already reported to a group within the WHO to determine if the [new variants] which were detected are unique here or are already found in other countries,” Lim said.
“This is being monitored by our Philippine Genome Center,” she added. Following the discovery of the said Covid-19 variants last month, DOH said it still has yet to determine if these variants “will have any significant health” implications.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes