Quarantine restrictions in the greater Manila area will likely be eased by a notch to modified enhanced community quarantine or MECQ by next week, Malacañang said Monday as Filipinos in and out of the capital region geared up for another week in lockdown.
The government is hoping to lower the daily COVID-19 case tally to around 4,000 new cases per day from the record-high cases in recent days of at least 10,000 per day with stricter community quarantine protocols, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said.
"We’re looking at another week of MECQ after this week," Roque told CNN Philippines in an interview.
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Authorities extended for another week the enhanced community quarantine or ECQ in Metro Manila and the nearby provinces of Bulacan, Laguna, Cavite, and Rizal to cap a surge in COVID-19 infections that is threatening to paralyze the healthcare system.
"The estimate is after the two-week of ECQ and another week of MECQ, we might be able to reduce the number of cases by around 4,000 a day," Roque said.
The ECQ extension, according to Roque, will be used to boost testing and contact tracing efforts to curb the spread of the virus.
"It’s indispensible that, number one, during this period of ECQ we intensify our Prevention, Detection, Isolation, Treatment (PDITR) and local governments for this purpose were given a score card of sorts to measure ‘no, to have a basis for self-assessment on the extent that they have implemented these PDITR strategies," Roque said.
Should the MECQ shift push through next week, the public could see greater mobility, and more industries can operate at greater capacities.
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