An expert from OCTA Research on Wednesday, July 7, said Metro Manila may become resilient to the Delta coronavirus disease (COVID-19) variant in a few months with the ongoing vaccination rollout.
In an interview with ANC, Fr. Nicanor Austriaco said each local government unit in the National Capital Region (NCR) has already vaccinated between 20 to 70 percent of their population with at least one dose.
"Which suggests a month from now or a month and a half from now, that would be fully vaccinated people and the data suggests that in a few months, the NCR may be Delta-resilient and if this is the case, this is good news for the country," Austriaco noted.
According to studies, the Delta variant (B.1.617.2) is 60 percent more transmissible than the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7) first identified in the United Kingdom.
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He added that according to the metrics established by the Department of Health (DOH), the NCR is already considered "low risk."
"The risk to the health infrastructure is low, so it's not necessarily a risk to individual Filipinos. If you look at the number, the risk of a devastating surge in our healthcare infrastructure is quite low," Austriaco continued.
However, he reminded that the risk of COVID-19 infection to individuals is still "not low enough to remove face masks."
"The risk would drop significantly once the average daily attack rate falls below one. That would be less than 100 cases in the NCR per day."
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The Philippines has so far recorded 19 cases of the Delta variant.
A total of 8,839,124 individuals have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while 2,868,905 have been fully vaccinated.
The country is targeting to inoculate 70 percent of the population before the end of the year.