By The SUN
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The Philippines government will ease the quarantine restrictions in Metro Manila or the National Capital Region (NCR) and four adjacent provinces starting tomorrow, Monday.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque announced today,
Apr 11, that the five areas will be placed under the less stringent modified
enhanced community quarantine (MECQ), citing as one of the reasons the pledge
of hospitals to increase beds for Covid-19 cases.
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His announcement came as the Department of Health
reported another spike in the number of new coronavirus cases. Sunday’s 11,681
new cases pushed the country’s overall tally to 864,868. Of the total tally, 145,519
cases remain active, or 16.9% of the total.
But with the economy coming at a virtual standstill for the past 14 days because of the lockdown under the previous enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) arrangement, businesses had been calling for a resumption of activities.
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According to Roque, the move to MECQ was approved by
President Rodrigo Duterte at the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force
on the Covid-19 response.
But he said the details of the new quarantine arrangement
will be known only during his regular press briefing on Monday.
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At least one notable change has been reported, though, which was the shortening of the curfew hours in Metro Manila from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. Previously, the curfew was from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m.
The change was announced in a statement by the Metro
Manila Development Authority (MMDA), which said the shortened curfew hours will
last from Apr 12 to 30.
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No similar announcement was made for the four provinces
that will move to MECQ along with Metro Manila.
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| The curfew in Metro Manila will be shortened by 2 hours |
Roque said the MECQ will also be enforced in Abra and
the city of Santiago in Quirino province.
Meanwhile, the following areas will be placed under general community quarantine (GCQ), which is a degree lower in severity than MECQ:
-Cordillera Administrative Region
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-Batangas province
-Tacloban City
-Iligan City
-Davao City
-Lanao del Sur province
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-Quezon province
The rest of the country will be placed under modified
GCQ.
ECQ was imposed on the so-called NCR Plus bubble on
Mar 29 in the wage of a surge in Covid-19 cases in the area.
Originally intended to last for only seven days over
the long Holy Week break, the order was extended for another week as record
numbers of infections were being reported each day.
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