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Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte said the health of the country's first patient who tested positive for the new COVID-19 variant has improved.

"He is asymptomatic. He does not have any more symptoms and we are waiting for him to finish his antibiotics and a doctor's declaration that he is well," Belmonte said.

"He is actually OK. He did not need to be moved into a hospital," she said.

"That proves of course that while data shows that this variant is said to be more contagious and that is what we are actually preparing for, its effects are not more severe than the original COVID-19 virus," she added.

Belmonte said Quezon City has contact traced a total of 143 individuals who had "first and second generation contacts" with the patient.

"Presently we have already contract traced 143 individuals. These are comprised of close contacts or what we also called as first generation contacts. They are those who have close contact to the patient and the second generation contacts they are those who have close contacts to the first generation contacts," she said.

"The first contacts includes the passengers of the same flight who are also residents of Quezon City... it includes the health workers and ... those who helped our patient on his transfer from the hotel to the isolation facility where he currently stay," Belmonte said.

"The family members although they do not have closed contact with the patient from Dubai we also tested them as precautionary measure and they are the second generation contacts as well," she added.

Belmonte also mentioned that eight QC residents are also passengers of the same flight with the patient.

She said seven, including the girlfriend of the patient, were tested and isolated while they are still looking for one individual who provided wrong information about his contact details.

"All of the passengers that we have contact traced in QC, all of them have undergo swab testing and are already isolated we are still waiting for the result," said Belmonte. Robina Asido/DMS