ILOILO CITY – The Department of Health (DOH-6) has classified the entire Western Visayas region as high-risk for coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Dr. Bea Natalaray, DOH-6 chief for non-communicable diseases, said the high-risk classification was due to a 25-percent increase of cases in the past two weeks. The region also registered 7.12-percent of attack rate per 100,000 of its population.
Based on DOH-6 data, Western Visayas’ average of daily COVID-19 cases for the month of June has spiked considerably with 671. In comparison, the daily average for May was 391 and 261 for April.
The DOH-6 identified four specific areas in the region as high-risk: the provinces of Aklan and Guimaras as well as the highly urbanized cities of Iloilo and Bacolod.
Iloilo province has been identified as moderate risk area.
The provinces of Antique, Capiz and Negros Occidental are low risk.
Last Monday night, President Duterte announced that both Iloilo City and the entire Iloilo province are under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) status until June 30.
Initially, only Iloilo City was under MECQ as the city recorded an average of 100 or more new COVID-19 cases per day since last week of May.
As of June 14, Western Visayas has 11,820 active COVID-19 cases.