Quarantine likely to remain localized – Palace

MANILA, Philippines — Despite the continuous rise in COVID-19 infections, quarantine classifications are expected to remain localized as a wide-reaching lockdown would have a lot of repercussions, officials said yesterday.

Members of the government’s pandemic task force are deliberating on the quarantine groupings for February as the Philippines is grappling with a more infectious variant of SARS-CoV-2.

While some experts expect COVID-19 cases to surge because of the new mutation, the government is sticking to area-specific lockdowns for now.

“We don’t see any drastic change in classification on a nationwide basis. We will continue with what we are doing, that if there (are) changes in classification it would be localized,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque said at a press briefing.

Metro Manila, Santiago City, Batangas, Tacloban City, Iligan City, Lanao del Sur, Davao City and Davao del Norte have been classified as general community quarantine areas while the rest of the country are under the most relaxed modified general community quarantine.

President Duterte is expected to announce the updated classifications of areas before the end of the month. – Czeriza Valencia