COVID-19 cases in San Juan 'doubling or tripling' but mostly mild, asymptomatic —Zamora

San Juan City has observed a “spike” of COVID-19 cases in the city within a week despite having a 245% vaccination rate, Mayor Francis Zamora said Tuesday.

“We have never seen an increase this exponential in the last one year and 10 months. It is the first time I’ve seen doubling or tripling of cases on a daily basis,” he said in an ANC interview.

As of Monday, San Juan City reported 58 new COVID-19 cases, bringing its total active cases to 255. The city has a total of 16,066 confirmed COVID-19 cases.

The current number of active cases is much higher than the 12 recorded in San Juan on December 27.

“Please note that last December 14, we only had 5 and this was the lowest number that we ever reached since COVID-19 started,” Zamora said.

Zamora added that of the 255 active cases, 14.51% were asymptomatic, 83.92% were mild, 0.78 were moderate, and 0.78 were severe. None among them is in critical condition.

“What does this mean? 98.5% of our cases are either just mild or asymptomatic. This means that the vaccines are working,” he added.

According to DOH’s national COVID-19 vaccination dashboard, 57,180,817 individuals have received their first dose while 50,159,858 have completed their doses as of Monday.

Meanwhile, 1,968,913 booster doses were administered to those who have completed the six-month requirement.

Due to this “exponential growth” of new COVID-19 infections in San Juan, Zamora said he had to vote for the resolution of the Metro Manila Council restricting the movements of unvaccinated people while Metro Manila is under Alert Level 3.

“As mayor, it is my duty to protect the general welfare of our people. Hindi ko sila pwede pabayaan na lumabas na hindi bakunado [I can’t allow the unvaccinated go out] knowing that the cases are increasing on a daily basis, he said.

The whole Metro Manila is currently under Alert Level 3 until January 15. The provinces of Bulacan, Cavite and Rizal, meanwhile, will be placed under the same alert level from January 5 to 15 due to a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III earlier said that the Omicron variant may already be responsible for this rise in COVID-19 cases in the country.  —KBK, GMA News