The Department of Health (DOH) remains optimistic that all local government units (LGUs) will shift to Modified General Community Quarantine (MGCQ) by the first quarter of this year.

DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire made the remarks when she was asked about the recent pronouncement of Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez, saying it is still “doable” that the entire country will be under the most lenient quarantine classification come the first quarter of 2021.
“Everything is possible… We can do that if we all follow the health protocols, I think we can do that,” Vergeire said in Filipino.
The DOH spokesperson said the government is focused on lessening the number of new COVID-19 cases being reported daily.
“Our priority is still to reduce the number of cases and deaths. That is why we are looking forward to our vaccination program as it can help us in managing the situation alongside with the minimum public health standards. Our response (against the pandemic) continuous,” she said.
Case update
On Saturday, the DOH announced 2,109 new COVID-19 infections. This brought the Philippines’ total number of cases to 523,516.
The DOH said that 7.1 percent of the overall tally or 36,943 are active cases, of which, 82.5 percent are experiencing mild symptoms, 9.5 percent are asymptomatic, 2.6 percent are in critical condition, 2.1 percent are in severe condition, and 0.46 percent are in moderate condition.
The number of patients who have recovered increased to 475,904 with 146 more survivors, while the death count also climbed to 10,669 with 71 new fatalities.
“Six duplicates were removed from the total case count. Of these, two recovered cases and two deaths have been removed,” the DOH noted.
“Moreover, five cases that were previously tagged as recovered were reclassified as deaths after final validation,” it added.