President Duterte considered imposing “strict restrictions” anew to counter possible Delta COVID-19 variant surge.
On Monday, President Rodrigo Duterte said that he considered imposing “strict restrictions” anew to counter possible Delta COVID-19 variant surge.
During his pre-recorded public address, President Duterte noted that the additional 16 new cases of Delta COVID-19 variant were recently recorded by the Department of Health (DOH).
President Duterte also said that the government may need to reinforce stricter restrictions in order to avoid mass gatherings and to prevent super-spreader events as well.
The National Capital Region (NCR) was under general community quarantine (GCQ), as well as its neighboring provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, and Rizal, which were previously part of the “NCR Plus” bubble.
Only Laguna remained under general community quarantine (GCQ) with heightened restrictions in the bubble.
Under the more restrictive MECQ (modified enhanced community quarantine) were Iloilo City and Iloilo province, Bataan, Cagayan de Oro City, Davao de Oro, Davao Del Sur, Davao Occidental, Davao Del Norte, and Butuan City.
However, President Duterte pointed out that Indonesia as well as Taiwan and South Korea, which had so far been doing good in their COVID-19 pandemic response, also had to go into another lockdown due to the Delta variant.
“Kapag nandito na, kung sakali man it will spread, I hope it will not, then we’ll have to go again to stricter measures. We are not the only one,” President Duterte said, noting that the United Kingdom was also going into a lockdown.
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President Duterte also said that he hoped the existing infrastructure of the Philippines in dealing with COVID-19 “can cope up”.
The President also urged the PNP (Philippine National Police) the DILG (Department of Interior and Local Government) to implement existing protocols with greater urgency and necessity.
President Duterte reminded the public that the reason why the security forces of the national government were very strict was not because they wanted to be strict and they wanted to make it hard for the people to move.
“Rather, they are strict because they want to protect the country from a very contagious disease and maybe cause more deaths more than the lives that we lost in the past,” President Duterte said.
So far, the Philippines had recorded a total of 35 cases of the Delta COVID-19 variant — including 32 recoveries and three deaths.
The Department of Health had refused to announce that there’s community transmission of the virus because all of the COVID-19 cases were linked to people who came from abroad.
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