2 active, 5 recovered Delta variant cases in Pasig City, says Vico Sotto

The Pasig City government on Thursday announced seven cases of the more contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus in the locality, of which two are active.

On Twitter, Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto said five of the Delta variant cases already recovered after yielding negative swab test results.

"They finished the mandated quarantine and were properly contact traced and tested, even before the Philippine Genome Center released the results that they are delta," he said.

The two active cases and their close contacts are currently under quarantine while the city health department conducted contact tracing and testing, Sotto said.

"Both are currently in our Centralized Quarantine Facility. Their close contacts have been traced, tested, and are now under quarantine at Daisy Hotel," he said.

Despite calls from experts to implement a "circuit breaker" lockdown, the national government retained the general community quarantine status with heightened restrictions over Metro Manila and several other provinces until August 15.

But Health Secretary Francisco Duque III earlier said this quarantine status may still be changed if local government units issue an appeal to the  Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Emerging Infectious Diseases.

On Thursday, the number of confirmed Delta variant cases in the Philippines nearly doubled, with the tally now at 216 after 97 new cases were reported. — Consuelo Marquez/BM, GMA News