PH plans to shift from pandemic to endemic approach to COVID-19

Presidential adviser on COVID-19 response Vince Dizon said that when the number of infections drop to less than 1,000 daily, the country can begin transitioning to an endemic framework. 

“I think we will begin the transition this February,” Dizon said. 

“We just need to bring down the cases to the levels that we had in late last year—below 1,000 cases per day. Then we can begin the process of transitioning from a pandemic framework to a more endemic framework,” he added.

As part of the pandemic exit strategy, the government is looking into the removal of the alert level system, as proposed by presidential adviser for entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion. 

Dizon said that the recent ease in the country’s quarantine mandate on fully vaccinated visitors is a move to a more endemic approach to the virus. 

The official added that the national task force (NTF) against COVID-19 is already crafting a plan to exit the pandemic state. More details will be released within the month, Dizon said. 

An endemic is defined as the constant presence of a disease in a certain area or region, while a pandemic implies a wider spread of the disease reaching across other countries.