Delta variant now in Baguio, Marinduque

LIVING WITH CORONA Retail vendors at Baguio City’s public market tend to their stalls amid the threat of COVID-19 infection. The danger posed by the Delta variant of COVID-19 has made doing business harder in the city. —EV ESPIRITU

BAGUIO CITY, Benguet, Philippines — The summer capital’s worst-case scenario has occurred after it recorded its first patient with the dreaded Delta variant of the coronavirus.

The gene sequencing process takes weeks and the result of the Delta patient was released after the afflicted individual had recovered from the disease, according to the Sunday social media post from the Department of Health (DOH).

Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong has not yet issued a statement at press time. But in an Aug. 11 briefing, he said the city’s medical front-liners were already bracing for a surge in infections by the end of last week. Magalong, who also serves as the country’s contact tracing adviser, said thousands of residents would have already been exposed to the Alpha (United Kingdom) and Beta (South Africa) variants, which struck Baguio early this year. The two variants were “the drivers of Baguio’s surge in April,” Magalong said, when active cases climbed to 1,600. The city still has 368 active COVID-19 cases as of Saturday.

In an Aug. 12 briefing, the DOH said Baguio tallied 144 variant cases (101 Alpha and 43 Beta), which were part of the Cordillera’s 306 variant cases, excluding the Delta variant.

Before the Baguio Delta case was confirmed, only a case in Apayao had been listed in the Cordillera. Two returning overseas Filipinos from Baguio and Abra have also contracted the Delta variant but were in a separate list, the DOH said.

Marinduque also reported on Sunday the presence of six Delta variant cases, one of whom had died.

Mayor Antonio Uy Jr. of Sta. Cruz town, a medical doctor, revealed that two of the Delta patients were from his town but provided no details of the other cases.

Overwhelmed hospital

The presence of the more contagious variant in Marinduque was confirmed just as patients with COVID-19 symptoms in the province were advised to seek treatment in facilities outside of the island as the provincial hospital was running out of beds for virus patients.

Marinduque Provincial Hospital in the capital town of Boac has announced that the facility was “already overwhelmed by the number of admissions.” Worse, the hospital has limited medical oxygen and no mechanical ventilator for COVID-19 patients, said hospital chief Dr. Manuel Zaratan.

“We therefore advise that COVID suspects needing admissions should be directly referred outside Marinduque by the RHU (rural health unit) or hospital concerned,” Zaratan said in a notice sent out on Saturday.

As of Saturday, he said the hospital was treating five COVID-19 patients in critical condition, seven others with severe symptoms and three moderate cases in their COVID-19 ward.

The province has logged 165 active virus cases as of Friday, 51 of which were reported on the same day.

The province only had 390 active COVID-19 cases on May 12 this year but it jumped to 1,145 on of Aug. 12, according to Gov. Presbitero Jose Velasco Jr. in a social media post on Saturday.

—REPORTS FROM KIMBERLIE QUITASOL AND MAYDA LAGRAN