Beware of Delta variant

Highly transmissible variant found in 83% of sequenced samples in August

- ELLALYN DE VERA-RUIZ

Eighty-three percent of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) random samples sequenced and analyzed in August were found to be of the highly transmissible Delta variant, Philippine Genome Center (PGC) Executive Director Cynthia Saloma said on Friday, Sept. 3.

“Nationally, 48 percent ng rating samples ay puros na po (of our samples were purely) Delta variant. So that's 48 percent of about 2,582 samples which were collected in July. In August, tumataas pa po ito pero kaunti pa lang yung bilang ng mga swabs na naitala natin (Delta cases were still increasing but the number of swabs we have recorded was less than the samples in July),” Saloma said in a virtual public briefing.

She said that 83 percent of the 542 samples analyzed in August were of the Delta variant.

Saloma also noted that the whole genome sequencing of COVID-19 samples in Metro Manila shows that a community transmission is happening in the region.