No community transmission yet of Delta variant in PH: Duque

MANILA – There is no community transmission yet of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) Delta variant in the country, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said on Friday.

“There is already local transmission. (As for community transmission), we cannot be definitive about it because of the limited genomic sequencing. But of course, we must assume there is already transmission. That is what is important and should guide intensification of our pandemic response using PDITR (Prevent-Detect-Isolate-Treat-Reintegrate) plus vaccination strategy,” Duque on the sidelines of the arrival of one million government-procured Sinovac vaccines at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3.

Duque’s remarks came a day after the country logged 97 more cases of the Delta variant, bringing the country’s total case count of the more infectious coronavirus variant to 216.

Also on Friday, the government placed Metro Manila under the strictest enhanced community quarantine from Aug. 6 to 20 to arrest the spread of the Delta variant.

Community transmission occurs when many people who don’t have any known contact with a patient get infected with the disease.

DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the DOH is performing phylogenetic analyses of the Delta variant cases in the country find out whether there is evidence of community transmission.

However, she noted that there is a need to act “as if there is already this type of transmission happening in the country” as not all Covid-19 cases are tested to find out their specific variant.

“Mas maging cautious tayong lahat, meron tayong extra precaution. Pero (Let us all be more cautious, have extra precaution. But) for now we cannot declare because we need evidence for us to say that there is really community transmission of the Delta variant,” Vergeire said.

She called on those who exhibit symptoms of Covid-19 to immediately contact their barangay health emergency response team or a doctor for immediate medical attention and to be immediate quarantined or isolated to prevent further spread of Covid-19.

She also asked local government units to continue performing active case finding to shorten the time between the onset of Covid-19 and the moment the infected are quarantined to help prevent more infections.

Vergeire said out of these variant cases detected by the University of the Philippines (UP) Philippine Genome Center and the UP National Institutes of Health, most have already recovered and only one was added to the total number of active variant cases—now at 54.

To date, there are a total of 1,856 cases of the Alpha variant (first detected in the UK), 2,146 of the Beta variant (first detected in South Africa), two cases of the Gamma variant (first detected in Brazil), and 266 cases of the P.3 variant (first detected in the Philippines).

Vergeire said there are five more deaths caused by the Delta variant—one from San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte; one from Balanga, Bataan; one from Pandan, Antique; one from Cordova, Cebu; and one from Pandacan, Manila.

“Ito po ay limang lalake, ang kanilang age range ay from 27 to 78 years old. Ang vaccination status po ay tatlo pa lang ang na-verify namin—hindi po sila bakunado (These are five men, age ranging from 27 to 78 years old. So far only three have been verified—they are unvaccinated),” Vergeire said.

Duque, meanwhile, said the country will continue to have a steady supply of Covid-19 vaccines as over 3.4 million doses of jabs are set to arrive on the first week of August,

“Merong Aug. 3, three million Moderna vaccines (Three million Moderna vaccines will arrive on Aug. 3). Aug. 2 we will have AZ (AstraZeneca), 415,000 doses,” Duque said.

The three million doses of the US-made jabs are from the US government through the COVAX Facility while the 415,000 doses of AstraZeneca jabs will be donated by the United Kingdom.

Duque also said the bulk of the newly-arrived Sinovac vaccines will be deployed to the ‘NCR Plus’, composed of Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal, while the rest will be dispatched to cities tagged as high-risk areas.

Also identified as priority areas for vaccines deployment are Metro Cebu, Metro Davao, Batangas, and Pampanga.