The government hopes that most Filipinos are now fully vaccinated for Covid-19 as all the 390,000 shots donated by Lithuania have already been administered, Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said on Tuesday.

In a Malacañang Press Briefing, Herbosa explained the Philippines is not seeing a similar pattern of Covid-19 resurgence as Singapore.

"Singapore reported another variety of Omicron, but it's still mild and there are no deaths reported," Duque said. "So, we just have to watch out for it."

He also expressed his optimism that most Filipinos, who are now fully vaccinated against Covid-19, will experience only mild symptoms if they get sick with the new variant.

"We've consumed all our bivalent actually, the 390,000 that we have," Herbosa said. "We are just hoping that the fact that most Filipinos are completely vaccinated for Covid, symptoms will be mild and this new variety is also like upper respiratory mild infection."

Herbosa said that the government is still studying whether it will need to order new vaccines, specifically the monovalent XBB vaccine that Moderna recently announced.

"We will still think whether we will need that, depending on our increase in cases," Herbosa said.

"The people who will need now, because the symptoms of Omicron and XBB are mild, we think that the people who will need the vaccinations will be elderly and immunocompromised or with comorbidities. So we will have to study what the advice will be in terms of this and we are looking at what other countries are doing and what WHO will recommend," he added.

Herbosa also urged the public to continue to practice self-protection measures, such as wearing a mask, especially if they have a cough, cold, or respiratory illness.

"If you are at high risk, especially if you are elderly or a senior citizen, you should get a flu shot," he said. "And if you are sick with a respiratory illness such as cough, cold, or sore throat, it's better to stay at home to prevent infecting your colleagues in the office or school," he added.