The Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday, August 5, reported 116 new cases of the highly transmissible COVID-19 Delta variant, which is ravaging Southeast Asia.

Of the 116 new cases, 82% or 95 are local cases; one returning overseas Filipino; 20 are still for verification.

The DOH said the indicated addresses of the new local cases are: Metro Manila, 83; Calabarzon, 3; Central Visayas, 4; Davao Region, 2; Zamboanga Peninsula, 1; Cagayan Valley, 1; and Ilocos Region, 1.

The DOH said all the new reported cases have been tagged as recovered.

The Philippines now has 331 known cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant, but there are concerns that the actual number may be far higher, as the Philippine Genome Center is only sequencing a small percentage of the positive cases.

The DOH amended the previous total Delta variant cases from 216 to 215 due to duplication.

“The DOH verified one case who was tested in two different laboratories. Both samples were sent to UP-PGC, sequenced after an anonymized selection, and detected with the Delta variant,” the agency said.

While evidence for community transmission is still being studied, the DOH said that the government “should act aggressively as if there is already community transmission.”

Community transmission means there are multiple unrelated clusters in several parts of a country or sources of infection are no longer traceable as large numbers of cases are not linkable to transmission chains.

More cases of other highly infectious variants

The DOH also reported the detection of 113 cases of the Alpha variant, 122 cases of the Beta variant, and 10 new cases of the Theta variant.

This means the country now has a total of 1,968 cases of the Alpha variant, 2,268 cases of the Beta variant, and 276 cases of the Theta variant.

On Thursday, the country recorded 8,127 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the Philippines’ total caseload to 1,627,816. Of the total cases, 28,427 died while 1,532,494 recovered. A total of 66,895 cases remain active or currently sick, the highest since May 3, when 69,466 active cases were recorded at that time. – Rappler.com