The Department of Health (DOH) said Thursday new cases climbed to 2,371 out of which 955 were reported in the National Capital Region.

One person died from COVID-19, the DOH said.

But infectious disease expert Edsel Salvana said even if cases were triple in the from the Omicron variant, the number of deaths did not come near that of the Delta variant.

"Even though the cases were tripled during the Omicron (wave), the number of deaths was nowhere near that of Delta. So, on that basis alone, we can say that the worst is really over for the pandemic," said Salvana at the ''Laging Handa'' forum.

He said this is due to a large number of Filipinos having received their vaccines vs COVID-19. DMS