Quezon City creates task force to prepare against Delta variant

File Facade of the Quezon City Hall.

MANILA, Philippines — The Quezon City government said it has formed a task force to prepare for a possible surge in new infections due the COVID-19 Delta variant.

The task force, called Delta Variant Task Force, will monitor the city’s disease surveillance, active case finding and its contact tracing capacity, the Quezon City government said in a statement on Friday.

The local government said the task group will also track the city’s “testing capability and the efficiency of its molecular laboratory in processing specimens.”

It is also tasked to review the city’s isolation and quarantine protocols and the status and bed capacity of its facilities, and assess equipment and manpower resources of hospitals handling moderate to severe cases

The Quezon City local government’s preparation for the Delta variant came as the country detected 16 new cases of COVID-19 Delta variant, five of which are returning overseas Filipinos and 11 are local cases.

Meanwhile, Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte welcomed the OCTA Research group report that said the city’s positivity rate already decreased to 5 percent, the rate set by the the World Health Organization at which infections are less likely to occur.

“This is good news for us. We were at 5 percent a week before the surge happened last February and March. This means that our cases and transmissions are well-monitored and controlled. We hope that this positivity rate shall continue to dip in the coming weeks,” Belmonte said.

OCTA also reported that the number of reported cases in the city has continued to slow down at 123 cases from 141 cases last week. It added that cases in the city continued to remain stable, similar to the areas in the National Capital Region (NCR).

“We are not seeing an alarming trend but a generally flat trend in NCR. Quezon City is, in fact, one of the local government units with incidence lower than 5 per day,” OCTA Research fellow Dr. Guido David said.

Quezon City has 1,330 active COVID-19 cases as of July 15.

Meanwhile, the Philippines has tallied 1,490,665 cases comprising 45,495 active cases, 1,418,856 recoveries, and 26,314 deaths. — Sofia Vertucio, trainee

EDV