1 Delta variant case prompts Apayao town lockdown

BAGUIO CITY—The municipality of Pudtol in Apayao province went on a lockdown starting on Friday (Aug. 6) to launch aggressive mass testing and heightened contact tracing following the detection of its first case of Delta, a more contagious variant of SARS Cov2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

According to the US CDC, Delta is as contagious as chickenpox, which has a 90 percent chance of being transmitted from an infected individual to others close to the source of infection.

The Apayao Provincial Inter-Agency Task Force said the confirmed presence of the Delta variant in Pudtol was relayed by the Philippine Genome Center.

According to the task force, the Delta patient was infected in July and has already recovered.

But the Department of Health (DOH) in Cordillera said it was tracing the patient’s close contacts.

Apayao Gov. Eleanor Bulut-Begtang said the situation, however, was under control.

Begtang appealed to Apayao residents to stay vigilant and strictly heed health protocols.

TSB