President Duterte has approved the extension of the ongoing enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the National Capital Region-plus (NCR-plus) bubble for another week starting April 5 due to the still-rising number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in the country.
Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque made the announcement after the country recorded 12,576 new COVID-19 cases on Black Saturday, bringing the total number of infections to 784,043.
In an announcement made over State-run social media channels, Roque said the Inter-agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases recommended extending the ECQ in Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal for at least a week, subject to review.
"Minimum one additional week beginning on the fifth of April," he said.
PDITR efforts
During this one-week extension of the strictest quarantine classification, Roque said the local government units (LGUs) and the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19 czars should intensify the implementation of the different prevention, detection, isolation, treatment, and rehabilitation (PDITR) measures.
"Nire-require po natin ngayon na magkaroon ng daily monitoring ang mga lokal na pamahalaan, ang ating mga NTF czars, para po malaman natin kung ano yung resulta ng pinaigting nating PDITR (We are requiring the LGUs and our NTF czars to monitor the PDITR measures daily so we can see the results)," he said.
"Kasama po diyan ay yung pagbabahay-bahay, paghahanap ng mga merong sintomas, at pagsa-subject sa kanila sa testing at isolation (This includes the house visits, and the search for symptomatic patients and subjecting them to testing and isolation)," he added.
The Palace official likewise called on LGUs to be strict in the enforcement of quarantine measures, including accosting those who are not following minimum health standards like the wearing of face masks and shields and physical distancing.
Roque said if the PDITR measures will help lessen the number of daily COVID-19 cases, the government may decide to ease the quarantine restrictions as well.
"Matapos po ng one week, kung napatunayan po natin na gumagana ang ating PDITR, ay pwede naman po tayo mag-MECQ sa susunod na linggo (After one week, if we see that the PDITR measures work, we can downgrade to the modified ECQ)," he said.
"Pero titignan po muna natin ang resulta ng karagdagang ECQ (But we will see the results of this extended ECQ first)," he added.
Bed capacity
Meanwhile, Roque said during the one-week extension of the ECQ, there will be an additional 110 beds for moderate to severe COVID-19 patients at the Quezon Institute in Quezon City.
He added that there will be at least 160 more beds additional bed capacity next month.