In her regular radio program on Monday, Sara said that the surge could happen despite the high vaccination percentage of the population in the city.
“We in the COVID-19 Task Force expect it - COVID surge will happen again, especially that people saw the low number of cases and many private gatherings happened,” she said.
“I asked the health group of the response cluster if there will be a surge next year. And the answer was yes, there will be a surge. What we don't know is how big or how deadly it would be, meaning how many will die with the incoming surge,” Duterte added.
The mayor cited previous year’s data of the COVID surge where Christmas, holiday, and new year’s gatherings had fueled the transmission and the new COVID-19 variant as well.
"That's what I asked the Vaccine Cluster. I asked if we reach 1.3 million first doses, will there still be a surge? According to the health expert, our doctor, she said, yes there will still be a surge because the vaccine will only make the symptoms mild.' Possibly you are a severe case but you will only become a mild or asymptomatic case, meaning there will still be transmission,” she said.
As of December 26, the city has fully vaccinated a total of 1,111,102 or 85.48 percent of the target population.
“What's dangerous is when there will be a lot of mild and asymptomatic cases who will have contact with unvaccinated individuals or persons with comorbidity or high risk unvaccinated or those vaccinated who have underlying health conditions and are also vulnerable to succumb to COVID-19 complications,” Sara further said.
Sara has repeatedly urged Dabawenyos to observe health protocols to lower the severity of a possible COVID-19 surge.