OFFICIALS of the Department of Health (DOH)-Central Luzon confirmed during Monday’s (July 26) Provincial Board committee hearing that Pampanga now has two recorded cases of the highly contagious Delta variant (B.1.617.2).
One of the patients is an overseas Filipino worker who returned from the Middle East. The patient reportedly went home to the City of San Fernando and was subsequently identified as infected by the Delta variant. The patient is waiting for the results of the next swab test.
Early this week, the Municipal Government of Mexico announced that an 18-year-old resident of the town with code name MM1467 was infected with the Covid-19 Delta variant.
The patient has been staying somewhere in Metro Manila since June 20, 2021, where she is being monitored and quarantined, the Municipal Government said in a social media post.
The town also clarified that the said case was not acquired at SM City Pampanga or anywhere in Pampanga.
“The Municipal Government of Mexico encourages everyone to be vigilant, stay calm, cooperate, follow the orders and stay at home. The local government is doing its best and exerts all its efforts to prevent and avoid the spread of the Covid-19. The public is encouraged to stop spreading fake news as it may cause confusion and scare to the public,” the statement added.
The Delta variant (B.1.617.2) has been tagged as the most worrisome form of the coronavirus because of its high transmissibility and resistance to antibodies.
The variant emerged in India in September 2020 and caused an acute shortage of oxygen and hospital beds, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
It has now spread to 98 countries, including Indonesia, where it is causing an almost vertical epidemic curve with record-high cases reported daily.
Studies have shown that the Delta variant has the highest reproduction rate. A person with the original Sars-CoV-2 strain could infect two other people. The Alpha variant, which was first reported in the United Kingdom, could infect four or five other people.
The Delta variant could infect up to eight other people.
