Metro Manila and the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) will be under general community quarantine (GCQ) for the whole month of February, Malacañang announced on Friday.
Aside from the two regions, Batangas, Tacloban City, Davao City, Davao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Iligan City would also be placed under GCQ, according to presidential spokesperson Harry Roque.
The rest of the country will be under modified general community quarantine.
Roque said the community quarantine classifications were approved by President Rodrigo Duterte.
The elevation of CAR’s quarantine status comes after the region reported cases of the new coronavirus variant that was first detected in the United Kingdom. Twelve of the country’s 17 UK variant cases so far were traced in Bontoc, Mountain Province.
Passi City in Iloilo province, meanwhile, will be under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) — the strictest among quarantine protocols — until February 11 due to the 166 new cases of COVID-19 recorded there since Wednesday. Most of the new cases were market vendors and their close contacts.
Department of Health data also showed the COVID-19 bed utilization rate in CAR (60%) was the highest in the country as of January 24.
Earlier, Roque said the government’s COVID-19 task force relies on data on two-week attack rate and critical care capacity to determine the possible quarantine classifications. —KBK, GMA News