President Rodrigo Duterte will announce updated quarantine classifications on or before June 29, Palace spokesman Harry Roque said Friday.
The current quarantine classifications, imposed by Duterte last June 15, will lapse on June 30.
Most of the country shifted to modified general community quarantine (MGCQ), while Metro Manila remained under general community quarantine (GCQ) and Cebu and Talisay City reverted to enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).
“May rekomendasyon na po [ang Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF)], pero this is subject to review by the president. Anyway, the president will announce on or before the 29th, I believe,” Roque said in a Palace briefing.
IATF Resolution No. 48 placed high-risk areas under ECQ and modified ECQ (MECQ), and moderate and low-risk areas under GCQ and MGCQ.
Factors considered are social, economic and security factors, clustering of cases, health system capacity and the trend of new cases, critical care utilization rate and case doubling time, among others.
Cebu City saw a spike in Covid-19 cases even after shifting back to ECQ. It has recorded 4,607 as of June 25.
The surge in infections led to the appointment of Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu as overseer of Cebu City’s Covid-19 response.
The government was aiming for Metro Manila to be placed under MGCQ after June 30, Roque said in an earlier briefing,
The country has so far recorded 34,073 Covid-19 cases, with 9,182 recoveries and 1,224 deaths. John Ezekiel J. Hirro