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MANILA – It is “very likely” that President Rodrigo Duterte will announce new quarantine classifications on Monday for January, his spokesman said Sunday amid concerns about the new, more infectious strain of the virus that has been spreading globally.
In a text message sent to ABS-CBN News, Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the president could announce the new classifications after the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) meeting tomorrow.
Metro Manila is currently in general community quarantine, while the more relaxed modified general community quarantine is in effect in most of the country.
Duterte met with IATF members and health experts Saturday about the new variant of the virus that causes COVID-19.
He said another series of lockdowns is possible if the situation worsens.
However, medical experts on Saturday did not support the imposition of another set of roadblocks and travel restrictions in the Philippines because while the mutated COVID-19 variant was easily transmissible, the mode of transmission would remain the same, i.e. drops. respiratory.
The government has already banned flights from the UK until mid-January over concerns that visitors to the UK may carry the new variant of the virus.
On Sunday, the Philippines saw the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases drop to less than 1,000.
But the Health Department clarified that this was because there were fewer testing labs open during the holidays and fewer people came in to get tested.
The Philippines has the second highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, as well as the number of deaths due to the disease in Southeast Asia.
However, the country has the highest proportion of COVID-19-related deaths per 1 million inhabitants in the region.
– Report by Jeffrey Hernaez, ABS-CBN News
new quarantine classification, GCQ, MGCQ, Duterte, Harry Roque, COVID-19, pandemic, new virus variant, UK
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