Dr. Rontgene Solante, an infectious disease expert, stated during Monday’s Laging Handa briefing that it is “high time” that the country’s general populace be obliged to undergo COVID-19 booster shots for enhanced protection when more workplaces open and in-person lessons restart.

Solante, a member of the DOH’s technical advisory group and an adviser to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), advocated for a booster mandate in light of the continuous “mild increase” in infections and higher positive rates observed in recent weeks.

According to the DOH, the average daily new coronavirus cases last week increased by 39% to 1,467 from 1,057 the previous week.

According to the DOH, 27 of the 10,271 confirmed new cases last week were in serious or critical condition. It noted that COVID-19 admissions climbed marginally but remained modest.

Solante said, “The uptake of our booster shots is really low, so I think it’s high time that we mandate booster vaccination for the general population. It has to be mandatory so that we can increase protection, especially now that we are preparing for face-to-face classes and workplaces are also open now,”

He pointed out that less than 20% of the target demographic received booster doses.

Only 15.18 million Filipinos have received booster injections, according to DOH data, while 71.04 million have finished their main doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

In comparison, neighboring countries such as Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand were able to reach half of their target audience, according to Solante.

The health expert also mentioned the idea of delivering COVID-19 immunizations on a regular basis in the future to address developing variations of concern.

“We know that the COVID-19 virus mutates and changes shape to the point that the vaccines used in the primary series have lower protection now. There is a possibility that with the next few months remaining, moving forward, we cannot control this because of the possibility of new, more variants of concern that would lower the efficacy of the vaccines,” Solante says.

“That’s one of the things we’re looking at, that there’s a possibility that vaccinations will be regular—whether it’s three months, four months or six months. It depends on the studies on what vaccines should be given regularly, and depending on the prevailing, dominant variants in that particular year,” he continued.

The “mild spike” of infections projected by OCTA Research, according to Solante, is “beginning now,” owing to rises in COVID-19 positive rates.

“The positivity rate, the newly infected individuals based on that positivity rate is starting to rise,” he says.

According to OCTA Research data issued on July 9, the positive percentage in Metro Manila was 10.9 percent, while the DOH reported a countrywide positivity rate of 6.8 percent.

The current increase is mostly due to more transmissible Omicron subvariants of the virus.

According to OCTA Research Fellow Guido David, they do not expect cases to increase dramatically in Metro Manila because the growth rate has reduced to 31 percent from 62 percent the previous week.

“In Metro Manila, the peak may be in mid-July or delayed by late July. We expect more than 1,000 cases or maybe up to 2,000 cases a day in Metro Manila, if it is prolonged maybe even 3,000 cases a day,” David said.