574 international travelers positive for Delta

MANILA, Philippines — Except for one “unclassified” variant, the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) found only Delta variant cases from the samples collected among travelers from Omicron-affected countries.

“Last week, we sequenced about 574 and all those sequenced were Delta,” PGC Executive Director Cynthia Saloma said partly in Filipino during a radio interview yesterday.

The PGC also ran “emergency” tests on samples from the airport and all of these turned out to be Delta cases, except for one which was a B.1.1.203 and not a COVID-19 variant of concern, added Saloma.

“It’s a B.1.1.203, but it’s not classified as either a variant of concern or variant of interest for the reason that it does not have mutations which you would think carries changes in transmissibility – nothing like that,” she explained.

Yesterday, the Department of Health (DOH) reported an additional 402 cases, bringing to 2,836,592 the total COVID-19 caseload nationwide.

A total of 11,255 cases are active, while 2,775,057 have recuperated from the illness, including the 509 newly recorded recoveries, the DOH report showed.

The National Capital Region (NCR or Metro Manila) topped the regions with the most active cases, followed by Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon or Region 4-A) and Central Luzon (Region 3).

In terms of new cases, the NCR also remains on top, followed by Calabarzon and Cagayan Valley.

Fatalities from the pandemic reached 50,280 with the addition of 184 newly reported deaths, of which six happened this month, the DOH said.

It reminded the public to continue observing minimum health protocol despite the decline in cases and the easing of mobility restrictions