NewsDesk @bactiman63

Philippines health officials reported an additional 116 Delta variant cases today, bringing the cumulative total to 331. Of the new cases, 95 are local while 21 are Returning Overseas Filipino (ROF) or still being verified.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Eighty-seven percent of the local cases are from the National Capital Region (83).

In addition to the newly detected Delta variant cases, the Department of Health detected additional 113 Alpha (B.1.1.7) variant cases, 122 Beta (B.1.351) variant cases, and 10 P.3 variant cases in the latest batch of whole genome sequencing.

On Wednesday, the Philippines also set another record in its vaccination program as a total of 702,013 Covid-19 vaccine doses were administered on Aug. 3, the highest daily throughput the country has recorded so far.

“We are very happy with this accomplishment. What we projected for the second quarter was just 500,000 jabs daily and the 700,000 mark was our goal for the fourth quarter,” National Task Force Against Covid-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said.

Of the more than 700,000 doses administered, 233,065 were given as the first dose, while nearly half a million doses were dispensed as the second shot.

The Philippines have delivered 22 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to date.