DOH: Presence of Delta variant seen in 9 regions
The presence of the Delta coronavirus variant has already been seen in nine out of the 17 regions of the country, an official of the Department of Health (DOH) said.
“We have detected local cases of Delta in nine regions,” said DOH Epidemiology Bureau Director Dr. Alethea De Guzman during a townhall event on Wednesday, August 4.
These regions are Ilocos (five cases), Central Visayas (32 cases), Northern Mindanao (14 cases), National Capital Region (46 cases), Central Luzon (20 cases), Western Visayas (five cases), Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) (28 cases), Eastern Visayas (10 cases), and Davao (four cases).
The Philippines has already detected 216 Delta variant cases, of which, 48 cases involved returning overseas Filipinos, while the remaining are considered local cases.
De Guzman said that it is best to assume that there is already community transmission of the Delta variant despite the absence of evidence.
“We are still collecting strong evidence to say that there is already community transmission. Kaya lang po (But), we can’t wait for that. We are working on the assumption that the cases that we are seeing, with or without whole genome sequencing, may already be Delta variant cases,” she said.
“All indicators are saying that cases are rising. And so we really need to act now, we need to work strategically to prevent the negative impact of Delta,” she added.
De Guzman said that the country remains at moderate risk classification for COVID-19.
“So, nationally, we are at moderate risk wherein our positive two-week growth rate is at 31 percent and our average daily attack rate is at 6.14 per 100,000 (population)-,” she said.
“Nationally, the average cases in the recent week has increased to 7,239 which is 937 or 15 percent higher than what we reported in the previous week which was 6,303 cases per day,” she added.
However, De Guzman said that Ilocos region, Cagayan Valley, Central Visayas, Northern Mindanao, Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), and NCR are already at “high risk case classification” for COVID-19 case trend.
In NCR, the average number of cases per day is now at 1,596, said De Guzman.
“This is 629 or 65 percent higher than what we reported previously which was only 967 cases per day. It is very evident that....(it) sharply increased at the end of July and (has been) continually increasing in recent days,” she said.
Metro Manila is set to be placed under the enhanced community quarantine on August 6 to 20 to curb the rising number of cases.