FULLY vaccinated individuals who have direct contact with a probable and confirmed Covid-19 patient would still be required to complete the 14-day quarantine, an official from the Davao City Covid-19 Task Force clarified.
Covid-19 Task Force spokesperson Dr. Michelle Schlosser made the clarification on Friday, September 10, 2021, after reports circulated that shortened quarantine will be allowed for people who have completed their vaccination.
Schlosser belied those reports and that the same policy would be imposed regardless of the person's vaccination status.
“Under the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) 124-B Series of 2021, katong gi-release, right after gi-release na siya, nag surge ang Manila and Cebu and then gi-defer na siya sa IATF meaning gibawi siya nga guidelines,” Schlosser said in an interview on 87.5 FM Davao City Disaster Radio.
(When the IATF-EID Resolution No.124-B was released, there was a surge in cases in Manila and Cebu and then the IATF deferred the guidelines.)
In July this year, the IATF released the resolution initially allowing fully vaccinated individuals who are close contacts of probable and confirmed Covid-19 cases to just undergo a seven-day quarantine period, provided that the individual remains asymptomatic for the duration of the seven days with the first day being the immediate date after the last exposure.
According to the Department of Health (DOH), a person is considered exposed to an infected individual if he has a “face-to-face contact within one meter and for at least 15 minutes, direct physical contact, direct care for a patient without using personal protective equipment, or other situations as indicated by local risk assessments.”
On August 10, the national government suspended the protocol that allows the shortened seven-day quarantine period for fully vaccinated travelers and individuals exposed to Covid-19 positive patients, saying that the measure was meant to slow down the transmission amid the surge of cases.
“Even if pag-release anang 124-B, wala na siya gi-adopt sa Davao City, wala na siya gi-adopt sa Covid-19 Task Force ug sa atong respected mayor because dili siya applicable when ang isa ka lugar wala pa ka-achieve og herd immunity,” she said.
(Even when Resolution 124-B was released, the Davao City Covid-19 Task Force and Davao City Mayor Inday Sara Duterte did not adopt it because it does not apply when a certain place hasn’t achieved herd immunity yet.)
She added that even if certain individuals test negative on their reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and the close contact is asymptomatic, it still does not exempt them from being isolated for two weeks.
Schlosser also said that the minimum 15-minute close contact with an index case is no longer being considered following the emergence of the highly infectious Delta variant.
"That's not anymore true. Based sa WHO [World Health Organization], even few seconds to two minutes, pwede na maka-infect ang Delta variant. Ing-ana siya kapaspas (a person with the Delta variant can already infect them. That’s how virulent the variant is),” she said.
The official recently warned that Covid-19 facilities are nearing full capacity.
This after Davao City logging a record-breaking 700 new cases in a single day, according to the city’s Covid-19 Task Force.
"Ubay-ubay kaayo ang kadaghanon sa atoang cases. In fact, karong adlawa, 700 ta ka cases. Dili na siya joke," Covid-19 Task Force Spokesperson Dr. Michelle Schlosser said in an interview on Friday, September 10.
(We have recorded a large number of Covid-19 cases. In fact, we have recorded 700 cases today [September 10]. That's not a joke.)
Schlosser said this was, by far, the highest number of new cases in a single day since the pandemic hit the city in March 2020.
The 700 new cases in Davao City are part of the 1,153 new cases recorded in the entire Davao Region on September 9. This is also the highest number of new cases recorded in the region in a single day.
As of September 11, DOH-Davao Region recorded a total of 42,834 confirmed Covid-19 cases in Davao City. Out of the total, 8,521 were active cases, 32,834 recovered and 1,303 succumbed to the virus.