By Beting Laygo Dolor, Contributing Editor
The Philippine Senate was forced to stop operations after Senate President Miguel Zubiri ordered a lockdown of the entire building where the lawmakers hold their regular sessions.
Zubiri took the unusual step after seven of the country’s 24 senators were found to have caught COVID-19 within days of each other.
Aside from the senators, more than 20 staffers had also been infected.
The Senate building was closed for “thorough cleaning and disinfection” last August 22 and resumed operations the next day, according to the Senate president. Workers who tested positive for coronavirus will have to work from home for the duration of their illness.
The last straw took place last August 19, when Senators JV Ejercito and Nancy Binay said they had also tested positive for COVID-19, raising to seven the total number of lawmakers from the upper chamber to be infected by the coronavirus in recent days.
Previously, Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva joined fellow senators Grace Poe, Alan Peter Cayetano, Cynthia Villa and Imee Marcos who were infected the virus.
In a statement to local media, Binay said she discovered she had tested positive on Thursday, and immediately went into isolation the same day.
According to Binay, “After more than two years of consciously observing all protocols to avoid the virus, it is unfortunate that yesterday, I tested positive for COVID-19. I am currently at home under self-isolation and strictly following recommended protocols, including health and safety procedures.”
For his part, Ejercito said in Facebook, “Tested positive for COVID-19 according to RC-PTR test yesterday morning, result of which was e-mailed late last night. No symptoms.”
The new Senate building opened in July, last year, located in Taguig in the expansion area of Bonifacio Global City. Hundreds of visitors enter and exit the building on a daily basis.
The senators are believed to have fallen ill to the BA.5 sub-variant of Omicron, the latest of several variants of COVID-19, which first appeared in late December of 2019, and reached the Philippines in March of 2020.
The new variant is believed to spread much faster than the original but is far less deadly.
After a steady decline in cases as the number of Filipinos being vaccinated rose, the country experienced a surge in new cases beginning two months ago.
As of this week, the OCTA Research Group classified Metro Manila as being under moderate risk category, “although the level of infections remains high.”
The latest surge began to weaken last week, according to the Department of Health.
The latest daily attack rate stood at 8.14 new infections per 100,000 people. The World Health Organization sets at 5 as the acceptable daily attack rate.
Reproduction rate, meanwhile, dropped from 1.18 in the first week of August to 1.03 on the second week. Reproduction rate refers to the number of people that a COVID-positive person can infect.
OCTA Research expects the number of new cases daily to fall below 500 in Metro Manila either by the end of this month or early September.
Since the new COVID variants are not considered as deadly as the original strain, much of the Philippines is now under the more relaxed category 1.
Health authorities, however, are keeping a close watch on the nation’s schools, which resume face to face classes this week. The greatest fear is that 100 percent face to face classes required by November can still result in super spreader gatherings.
The pandemic has affected close to 3.9 million Filipinos and has caused more than 61,000 fatalities.
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