Metro Manila stays under GCQ until July 15 – Duterte

MANILA, Philippines — Metro Manila will remain under a general community quarantine (GCQ) until July 15, a month since the GCQ was first imposed to help restart the COVID-19 pandemic-hit economy.

This is after President Rodrigo Duterte approved the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to place Metro Manila, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the country, under GCQ for two more weeks starting July 1.

Also under GCQ until July 15 are the following provinces:

• Benguet, Cavite, and Rizal in Luzon
• Leyte and Southern Leyte in the Visayas

And the following cities and municipalities in the Visayas:

• Lapu-Lapu, Mandaue, Talisay, and Minglanilla in Cebu
• Ormoc in Leyte

The government opted to maintain the less restrictive lockdown measures even as the coronavirus infections continued to swell every day.

There are currently 37,514 confirmed cases of COVID-19 nationwide, including 10,233 recoveries and 1,266 deaths.

According to some experts, the COVID-19 cases nationwide may shoot up to 60,000 by the end of July as the spread of the disease shows no sign of slowing down.

They also pointed out that the number of cases in Metro Manila increased by 50 percent when lockdown restrictions were relaxed — from an average of 271 fresh COVID-19 cases per day during the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) to 396 fresh cases per day during modified ECQ to 583 fresh cases per day during the GCQ.

/atm