Hospitals in the country will be "significantly" strained if the Delta coronavirus variant spreads in the communities, a member of the OCTA Research group warned on Thursday, June 24.

The Delta variant is a combination of the "worse characteristics of the variants that have come before it," according to Molecular biologist Fr. Nicanor Austriaco during the Palace press briefing.

"Based on the numbers that we are seeing around the world, the number of infections of one COVID patient with the Delta variant rises from two to three, which is the original variant from Wuhan, to about six to eight," he said.

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If a community transmission happens, "the entry of the Delta variant into the Philippines would be dramatic," he said.

"So what would happen if the Delta variant entered our beloved country---the contact tracing capacity would have to be severely enhanced to undertake the contact tracing for that kind of transmission," said Austriaco.

"We also know from the United Kingdom that hospitalization rates will increase by 30 percent. If the Delta variant enters the country, this would put significant strain on our healthcare system. We already saw what happened in the Alpha variant in March," he added.

Austriaco said that he is hoping that the government is preparing for the worse.

"The government has successfully stopped 17 cases of the Delta variant from entering community transmission in the Philippines. And I'm grateful for that achievement," he said.

"We hope for the best. We have very strong border controls but we hope that the government is also preparing for the worst case scenario," he added.