While the Philippines has de-escalated to Alert Level 1 in the pandemic zone caused by the deadly coronavirus 2019, the World Health Organization has warned that a new variant is spreading quickly in parts of Europe.
This is a combination of the previously identified and highly transmissible Delta and Omicron versions which have combined to form a new one but some experts are not concerned—identified only days before the second anniversary on March 11 of WHO’s declaration of the global pandemic.
WHO said the variant, dubbed “Deltacron” by some, has been found spreading in France, Holland and Denmark, with two cases believed by the organization to have been identified in the United States.
The organization issued grave warnings that the Deltacron has the potential to become a major problem in both Europe and the US. But some experts are not so concerned.
Overall numbers of Deltacron cases remain low, according to scientists on the chase, even in countries where some person-to-person spread has been detected. Instance, William Lee, chief science officer at Helix, a lab in California that sequences COVID-19 samples, said he does not even expect the variant to warrant its own name based on Greek letters.
Health authorities in the Philippines said the country, which has logged at least 3.6 million confirmed cases and 57,182 deaths since March 2020, is better prepared and more equipped to face the new variant of concern given its experience in standing up to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel on Friday the country’s health experts have gathered sufficient experiences that the country was therefore ready to face another variant of concern.
While the data on the Deltacron is still limited at this time, Dr. Rontgene Solante, head of the Adult Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine unit of the San Lazaro Hospital in Manila, told a public briefing that “the behavior of the Delta and Omicron combination is not yet known.”
“If the Delta combines with Omicron…we will look at what and how many these mutations are,” he said, adding the country’s current vaccination rate status will help fight the possible adverse effects of Deltacron.
We need not wait for Deltacron to reach our rugged shoreline before we raise the red flag of concern.
Certainly, the two years that we were under various stages of lockdown must have introduced learning lessons even as we hope that if the variant does storm in it would not be as treacherous as the previous variants.