Metro Manila together with six other areas will remain under General Community Quarantine (GCQ) classification next month.
During his public address on late Monday evening, President Rodrigo R. Duterte announced he approved the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF) on the new community quarantine classifications.
This includes placing the National Capital Region (NCR); the provinces of Batangas and Lanao Del Sur; and the cities of Iloilo, Bacolod, Tacloban, Iligan under GCQ.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said the IATF considered the recommendations of the NCR mayors, the daily attack rate data, and the utilization rate of hospitals in making the said recommendation.
The Palace official, however, noted that the list could still change since the affected local government units (LGU) could still submit an appeal to the IATF to be excluded in the list up to Thursday.
Roque said the new classification will take effect from Nov. 1 to Nov. 30, 2020.
Duterte said some of the mayors in the concerned regions actually want to make their GCQ classification “permanent” because they have observed how it considerably lowered the number of novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in their respective areas.
Image credits: Bernard Testa