PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia’s top health official said it’s only a matter of time before the new omicron variant of COVID-19 makes it to our region, so she’s urging extra precaution as people gather for the holiday season.
"The threat is real and increasing," said Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Cheryl Bettigole during the city's COVID-19 update Wednesday.
The December 1 Philadelphia COVID-19 briefing. Courtesy the City of Philadelphia.
She explained that new cases are climbing again, even before the full impact of gatherings held during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend registers.
"With the colder weather and recent spikes, and a new variant of concern on the horizon, this is a time to be very careful," said Dr. Bettigole.
"People move around. They have the right to move around, so what we want to do is protect residents as well as possible."
One troubling development is that Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is at capacity. Dr. Bettigole said the full hospital beds are mainly not due to COVID-19.
"Because of mental health among children, they are seeing very large numbers of children, and then [respiratory syncytial virus] and other kinds of illnesses," said Dr. Bettigole.
But she said it would present a challenge if a holiday spike or omicron outbreak required a large number of hospital beds.
As always, Dr. Bettigole urges vaccination and she reports progress on that front, with more than 93% of adults, 85% of teenagers and almost 10% of 5 to 11-year-olds with at least one dose.
Other precautions include masking and refraining from indoor gatherings.
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She reported good compliance with the city’s mask mandate, a vaccine mandate for higher education students and staff, health care workers, and city workers and contractors.
Dr. Bettigole said the city is not contemplating a return to anything more restrictive at this time but is urging residents to get vaccinated, boosted, and to observe prevention measures such as masking, avoiding indoor gatherings, testing, and staying isolated if they have symptoms.
She believes it would be helpful if Philadelphia had a greater capacity to sequence samples of the virus.
The city has been depending on Penn Presbyterian Medical Center and CHOP to determine what strains are affecting residents but is working on building a sequencing unit within the city’s health lab.
"This feels like a very, very important capability for us going forward," she said.