The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Tuesday (Aug. 31) that the highly transmissible Delta variant is now the dominant COVID-19 strain in the Philippines.
In a media briefing, WHO Representative to the Philippines Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe said the latest batch of samples that were subjected to genome sequencing showed that almost 70% tested positive for the Delta variant.
“We do know the Delta variant spreads very fast, [is] more transmissible, [and has a] shorter incubation period. So, yes, with this kind of transmission, with this kind of numbers we are in community transmission with the Delta variant,” Abeyasinghe said.
In a separate media briefing, the Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said since the Delta variant was detected here, cases showed steady increase and has already replaced the Beta and the Alpha variants as the most common lineage detected on each sequencing run.
The average daily reported cases from Aug. 24 to Aug. 30 is 17,013, which is higher than the previous week’s 14,886 average daily cases.
To date, 12 out of 18 regions, including the National Capital Region have been classified as high risk for COVID-19 due to high average attack rate. – Report from Mark Fetalco / CF – rir
