Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd said the figure includes the nine individuals who were identified to have had close contact with the woman when she was in Quezon City.

Two of the nine tested negative, Duque said in a briefing on Thursday.

The 52-year-old woman arrived from Finland on April 2. Because she did not have the symptoms for the Omicron subvariant and was fully vaccinated, she did not go through quarantine.

Nine days after her arrival, the woman began to experience a headache and sore throat, the symptoms of Omicron.

She recovered after seven days of isolation and returned to Finland on April 21.

Under the revised Covid guidelines, the testing of asymptomatic close contacts of positive Covid-19 cases has been replaced with symptom monitoring.

The DoH said other close contacts of the woman include the five people who participated in her seminar in Baguio City and the 30 plane passengers and crew in her flight to Manila. All of the contacts were fully vaccinated, it said.

Interviewed on CNN Philippines on Thursday, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said all the woman’s close contacts were tested as soon as she turned out to be Covid-positive.