MANILA (UPDATE)— The Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday said 8 Filipinos who have supposedly recovered from the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 tested positive again for the disease after they underwent RT-PCR retesting.
Of the 8 active Delta variant cases, 4 are in Cagayan de Oro, 1 is in Manila, another 1 is in Misamis Oriental, while 2 others are Filipinos who arrived from abroad, DOH spokesperson Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said.
"Lahat sila ay walang sintomas. Sila ay mino-monitor ngayon hanggang matapos nila ang 14-day quarantine," she said in an online press conference.
(They are all asymptomatic. They are now under monitoring until they finish the 14-day quarantine.)
"These cases, lahat sila halos 'yung CT (cycle threshold) values nila mataas. Ibig sabihin mababa na 'yung viral load sa katawan so most likely hindi na sila ganoon ka-contagious," Vergeire said.
(All of these cases have high CT values. This means that the viral load in their bodies are low so most likely they are not that contagious anymore.)
The DOH is still studying why these 8 cases yielded positive results after a prior RT-PCR test showed they already recovered from COVID-19.
The DOH did not say why they decided to retest the Delta variant carriers and the time frame between the supposed recovery of these patients and when they were subjected to another RT-PCR test.
The health department initially said that of the 35 Filipinos who were infected with the Delta variant, 3 died while the rest have recovered from the disease.
The Delta variant caused catastrophic spread of COVID-19 in India and is behind a spike in cases in Indonesia, which is now considered as the epicenter of the virus in Southeast Asia.
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