The Department of Health (DOH) on Monday, August 2, said there is still no enough evidence yet that there is already a community transmission of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Delta variant.
"The assumption is there but we cannot still pronounce or declare because we still do not have sufficient evidence yet," Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online forum.
"We need sufficient evidence for us to declare that there is already community transmission because there are international implications to this and we also have international definitions that we align to," she added.
"For now, we don't have evidence yet showing that there is no more linkages among cases in this area even though our genome sequencing has detected these 200 plus Delta variant cases," said Vergeire.
The Health official, meantime, reported that there are already 17 active cases of the Delta variant.
"We have 17 active cases. I think what we released yesterday was 16. Upon revalidation, the one in Region 6 was classified as acribe case and is now in isolation facility," she said.
Of the active cases, Vergeire said, 15 are local while two are returning overseas Filipino (ROF).
She said of the 216 Delta cases, 190 recoveries and 9 deaths.
On July 29, the DOH reported the detection of 97 Delta (B.1.617.2) variant cases, 83 Alpha (B.1.1.7) variant cases, 127 Beta (B.1.351) variant cases, and 22 P.3 variant cases in the latest batch of whole genome sequencing results.