Covid-19 Delta variant cases across the country jumped to 331 from 116 on Friday, the Department of Health reported, even as the agency confirmed the presence of the more transmissible variant in practically all local government jurisdictions in the National Capital Region (NCR) as early as Thursday.
In an online media forum, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire initially said that 16 out of 17 local government units in NCR “are with Delta variant cases.”
Later, however, the DOH clarified in a Viber message that, “Upon clarifying with the team, we detected Delta on all 17 cities and municipality in NCR.”
Delta variant cases in the country, meanwhile, climbed to 331 after a total of 116 additional cases were reported on Thursday.
There were also 113 Alpha (B.1.1.7), 122 Beta (B.1.351), and 10 P.3 variant cases detected in the latest batch of whole genome sequencing.
Of the additional 116 Delta variant cases, 95 are local cases, one is a returning overseas Filipino (ROF), and 20 cases are currently being verified if these are local or ROF cases.
Of the 95 local cases, 83 cases had an indicated address in the National Capital Region, while three had indicated addresses in Calabarzon, four in Central Visayas, two in Davao Region, and one each in Zamboanga Peninsula, Cagayan Valley, and Ilocos Region.
All cases have been tagged as recovered, even as our DOH’s regional and local health offices are validating all other information.
Among the total 216 Delta variant cases reported last July 29, the DOH verified one case that tested in two different laboratories. Both samples were sent to Philippine Genome Center and sequenced after an anonymized selection, and detected with the Delta variant.
With this, the DOH is amending the previous total Delta variant cases from 216 to 215.
Likewise, the DOH also said that while community transmission of the Delta variant is being studied, the national government, together with local government units, “should act aggressively and assume there is already a community transmission of the virus.”
Due to the imposition of enhanced community quarantine in the NCR, the DOH is urging the public to continue practicing minimum public health standards at all times to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
The DOH is also reminding everyone to ensure there is good ventilation whenever indoors by opening windows and doors.
Moreover, the DOH reiterated to the public to avail of the government’s free vaccination program.
10,623 cases logged on Friday
The Philippines on Friday logged over 10,000 Covid -19 cases for the first time since April this year.
As of 4 p.m. on Friday, August 6, DOH recorded 10,623 additional cases, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 1,638,345.
There were also 3,127 recoveries and 247 deaths.
Of the total number of infections, 4.5 percent (74,297) are active cases, 93.7 percent (1,535,375) have recovered, 1.75 percent (28,673) has died.
The DOH said 94 duplicates were removed from the total case count. Of these, 87 are recoveries and one death.
Moreover, nine cases previously tagged as recoveries have been validated to be active cases and 150 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
One laboratory was not operational on August 4, 2021, but 5 were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.
Based on data in the last 14 days, these 6 labs contribute, on average, 1.7 percent of samples tested and 1.3 percent of positive individuals.
Area and hospital classifications
WhilE admitting that the country is facing a health crisis amid the contagion, DOH has issued four alert level classifications in areas with increasing number of Covid-19 cases and hospital care utilization rates (HCUR).
“To flag areas, we are now classifying each province, highly urbanized city, and independent component city as to alert levels based on the area classification with regard to cases and Covid-19 ICU bed utilization rates,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online media forum on Friday.
According to Vergeire areas under Alert Level 1 are those with low transmission and decreasing HCUR, no Delta variant case in an area, at minimal to low risk, have a negative two-week case growth rate (TWGR) and HCUR lower than 50 percent.
Alert level 2 on the other hand, shows low transmission and decreasing HCUR, Delta case are present, have positive TWGR, or areas that are at minimal to low risk, have a negative TWGR, but have an HCUR higher than 50 percent.
Meanwhile, Alert Level 3 means that although an area is at moderate to critical risk, Covid bed occupancy rate is lower than 70 percent, while Alert level 4 means that an area has been classified as moderate- to critical-risk and has an HCUR higher than 70 percent. The DOH official said that Levels 3 and 4 does not take into account the presence of the Delta variant in an area.