Quezon City residents who tested positive for COVID-19 will no longer be allowed to undergo isolation inside their homes.
This came after Mayor Joy Belmonte passed a measure requiring the city's asymptomatic and symptomatic patients to be isolated in authorized facilities only.
"We deem it necessary to prohibit COVID-19 patients, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic, from undergoing isolation in their homes, to prevent infection among their household members as well as their communities, especially with the dreaded and more infectious Delta variant now in Metro Manila," Belmonte said in passing the measure.
The measure, introduced by the council's majority floor leader Franz Pumaren, has authorized the city's health department to require individual isolation of confirmed COVID-19 cases at the city's HOPE isolation facilities or in facilities operated by the barangay governments.
Patients will only be tagged as recovered patients "as long as they have completed the said isolation period, have clinically recovered, are no longer symptomatic for at least three days, and have received clearance from a licensed medical doctor," the measure read. They must also complete the 10-day quarantine.
Meanwhile, for fully vaccinated individuals who will test positive for the virus, they will be required to stay at isolation facilities for seven days.
Visitors, including family members, are strictly prohibited, the ordinance stated.
COVID-19 patients who will be caught in public before their recovery will be held accountable for violation of the said ordinance, the local government warned.