MANILA – The National Capital Region and seven other areas will be placed under general community quarantine (GCQ) for the whole month of February.
President Rodrigo Duterte approved the recommendation made by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) on Thursday.
Other areas placed under GCQ were Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) areas such as Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Baguio City, Ifugao, Kalinga and Mountain Province; Batangas; Tacloban City; Davao del Norte; Lanao del Sur; and Iligan City.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said that the rest of the country, including Santiago City, Ormoc City, will be placed under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ).
Metro Manila, which accounts for about a third of the country’s gross domestic product, has been under GCQ since August 2020, with stricter lockdowns enforced in earlier months as COVID-19 infections rose.
In a virtual presser at Laging Handa on Friday, Roque told that while the Department of Health has already confirmed the local transmission of the UK variant in Bontoc, Mountain Province, there is still no conclusive data if the variant was already spreading in the country.
He also stated that escalation of community quarantine classification in Cordillera region has been expected after the region’s bed care and health care utilization rates reached “moderate risk”.
The Philippines has tallied 519,575 coronavirus infections, as of Thursday. The unabated first wave of infections has prevented the economy from fully reopening. /PN
