CITY OF CALAPAN – Marinduque Governor Presbitero Velasco on Saturday evening issued an order placing the province under general community quarantine (GCQ) from August 16 to 31, 2021.
The order was issued after reports of COVID-19 variants Alpha and Beta were detected in the province, Velasco said in his statement.
Marinduque is currently under the least stringent modified GCQ.
He also said the fast transmission of the virus in the province may be related to the highly transmissible Delta variant.
The Department of Health recently declared the province on Alert Level 3 which means it is under moderate and critical status.
There were only 390 COVID-19 reported cases on May 12 this year in Marinduque since the pandemic started last year but it rose to 1,145 cases on August 12, an increase of 755 new cases in only three months.
The death toll also increased from 18 on May 12 to 47 as of August 12.