Philippines sees 55 more Delta variant cases, total climbs to 119
MANILA, Philippines — Philippine health authorities on Sunday detected 55 more cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19 to bring the country's total to 119.
The Department of Health said 37 of these are local cases, while 17 are returning Filipinos from abroad.
Officials are still identifying if the last one remaining is a local case or an individual from overseas.
DOH added that, from the new local cases, 14 are from Calabarzon while eight are from Northern Mindanao.
Six, meanwhile, had indicated address in Metro Manila, another six in Central Luzon, two in Davao Region and one in Ilocos Region.
The health agency also reported that one of the additional cases has died. This brings the count of fatalities to four.
All 54 have since been tagged as recovered, with 12 active cases remaining.
The detection of more Delta cases comes as authorities officially declared local transmission of the variant at home.
DOH attributed the consecutive release of genome sequencing results in the past week to more resources for biosurveillance.
"Samples with more recent collection dates and those from areas with spikes were prioritized to determine the presence and spread of these variants in these areas," it said.
Apart from Delta infections, the Philippines also saw 179 new cases of the Beta, or the variant first detected in South Africa.
DOH also reports 179 Beta variant cases, 94 from Alpha variant, and nine more from the P.3 variant. | via @christiandeips pic.twitter.com/j0suxQqeHp
— Philstar.com (@PhilstarNews) July 25, 2021
There were also 94 more cases of the Alpha, or that first seen in the United Kingdom, as well as nine of the P.3, the homegrown since downgraded to variants "under alerts for monitoring."
"With the establishment of the local transmission of the Delta variant, we need a swifter implementation of our response strategies," authorities said.
DOH also urged local governments to immediately contain observed increase in COVID-19 cases through granular lockdowns and stronger implementation of detection and isolation protocols.
The government has moved to place Metro Manila under a stricter general community quarantine along with four areas until end of the month following the development.
Local and global updates on COVID-19 cases, outbreaks and containment efforts due to the highly contagious Delta variant, first identified in India. (Main image: Lockdown in Sydney, Australia in June 2021 by AFP/Saeed Khan)
The Delta variant remains dominant and experts, governments and vaccine makers are urging people to take advantage of booster jabs where they are available.
Delta has proved able to evade vaccine defences against transmission better than the Alpha, Beta and Gamma COVID-19 variants.
But jabs have remained highly effective at preventing severe illness from Delta, lowering the risk of overwhelming hospital resources. — AFP
The DOH reports 520 new cases of the highly contagious COVID-19 Delta variant, bringing the total in the Philippines to 5,331.
The new COVID-19 Delta subvariant has not yet been detected in the Philippines, the Department of Health says.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire says health authorities are monitoring 46 sublineages of the Delta variant, but “the particular Delta sublineage has not yet been detected among the COVID-19 positive samples sequenced in the country.”
Experts, however, are looking into the potential impact of the Delta AY.4.2. sublineage on transmissibility.
The Department of Health reports 633 additional cases of the Delta variant.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire says the additional infections account for 84.63% of the 748 samples tested on October 16.
The DOH reports 411 more cases of the highly transmissible COVID-19 Delta variant in the country.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire says the new Delta variant cases come from 747 samples collected from February to September.
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