The entire National Capital Region (NCR) will remain under the general community quarantine (GCQ) along with 14 other areas for the month of February, Malacañang announced Friday.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque made the announcement days before the existing quarantine classifications expire on January 31.
In an announcement over state-run PTV-4, Roque listed down the following as areas under the GCQ: NCR, Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Baguio City, Ifugao, Kalinga, Mountain Province, Batangas Province, Tacloban City, Davao City, Davao Del Norte, Lanao Del Sur, and Iligan City.
Other areas not mentioned, meanwhile, will be under the modified GCQ of MGCQ, the least strict quarantine classification.
This will be the country’s 11th month in lockdown.
The government earlier said that the new and more contagious United Kingdom variant of COVID-19 is a factor in determining whether or not to relax community quarantines and age restrictions.
However, Roque said on Friday that there was no conclusive data yet to tell if the UK variant is already spreading in the Philippines.
“Wala pa pong conclusive na datos na nakukuha kung prevalent na po ang UK variant sa Pilipinas,” he said.
On Thursday, Roque said that both CAR and the Davao Region were candidates for stricter quarantines after their dedicated healthcare facilities to respond to coronavirus cases have reached moderate risk at 60 percent and 54 percent, respectively.
The Department of Health (DoH) has detected 12 cases of the UK variant in CAR. To date, there are 519,575 COVID-19 cases in the Philippines – 519,575 died while 475,596 recovered. (Argyll Geducos)