MANILA, Philippines — Metro Manila will remain under a less restrictive general community quarantine (GCQ) from Sept. 1 to 30 as the country’s total COVID-19 cases reached 220,000, President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday night.
In a taped speech, Duterte said the provinces of Bulacan and Batangas and cities of Tacloban and Bacolod would also be under GCQ for a month.
Iligan City will be under a modified enhanced community quarantine or MECQ, while the rest of the country will be under the most lenient modified general community quarantine (MGCQ), Duterte added.
The government usually imposes varying degrees of the coronavirus lockdown restrictions in different areas for only 14 days.
But the government’s COVID-19 task force earlier said it was looking at implementing one-month community quarantine periods instead of the current two-week durations.
There were currently 220,819 confirmed coronavirus infections nationwide as of Monday, of which, 157,562 have recovered while 3,558 died.
More than half of the total cases nationwide were recorded in Metro Manila