The entire Central Visayas Region, including Cebu City and Mandaue City, and Zamboanga City will be under general community quarantine from June 1 to 15, Palace spokesman Harry Roque announced Saturday.
These areas will join Metro Manila, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon and Calabarzon regions, Pangasinan and Albay provinces, and Davao City as the only places to be under GCQ, as the rest of the country will shift to modified GCQ in June.
Roque said the Inter-agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) approved the downgrading on Friday, May 29.
IATF Resolution No. 40 previously placed Cebu City under modified enhanced community quarantine until June 15 as it was classified as a high-risk highly urbanized city.
Mayor Edgardo Labella appealed to the Malacañang to place Cebu City under GCQ, as the city saw a significant rise in Covid-19 recoveries the past days, and cited that it has completed its “strategic community testing,” of which results led to confidence the city could transition to less strict quarantine measures.
The city tallied 321 recoveries yesterday, bringing the total to 792, or 36.9 percent of its total 2,144 cases. The city has recorded 27 deaths.
The country’s total Covid-19 cases spiked to 16,634 yesterday, after 1,046 new cases were recorded. John Ezekiel J. Hirro