Still too early for border restriction, raising alert level amid BA.4 —Solante

Despite the detection of the transmissible Omicron subvariant BA.4, an infectious disease expert on Monday said it is still too early for the Philippine government to implement border restrictions and raise the alert level.

“So far it’s too early to implement a border restriction. Even in countries where BA.4 [and] BA.5 is already increasing, they don’t implement border restrictions,” Dr. Rontgene Solante said at the Laging Handa briefing.

Instead, Solante said the government should strictly monitor the situation and test vulnerable individuals who have COVID-19 symptoms.

“I don’t see any problem with the general population as long as we are wearing our face mask, we are following the health protocols,” he said.

The BA.4, a variant of concern, was detected from a Filipino who flew in from the Middle East on May 4.

According to Solante, the subvariant has a growth advantage of at least 13% to 14%. He also stressed that it can evade the immunity given by COVID-19 vaccines.

“The other aspect of this lineages, it can also evade immunity from the vaccines that we have received, especially for those who have been given the vaccine four to six months ago and without booster,” he said.

Experts have warned of a possible COVID-19 surge due to the variant.

For Solante, however, this may not severely affect the country’s health system.

“Based on the limited data. This variant has not been observed to cause more severe infection. So that’s a good news because you might just have mild infection and you still just isolate yourself and you don’t need to be brought to the hospital,” he said.

Though some may still visit hospitals, Solante said hospitals may be able to accommodate said patients as long as the hospitalization rate remains stable.

“As long as our hospitalization rate is stable, hospitals can still accommodate even if they will be hospitalized… I don’t see the need that we will increase or we will enhance our alert level,” he said.

Malacañang previously announced that the National Capital Region will remain under Alert Level 1 until Tuesday, May 31.—AOL, GMA News