IATF to decide on fate of MECQ in NCR, nearby provinces

FILE: People and vehicles accumulate at the checkpoint at the boundary of Las Piñas City and Bacoor, Cavite on Tuesday (Aug. 4, 2020) as police front-liners check their passes. (PNA photo by Avito C. Dalan)

MANILA – Members of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) will meet on Friday to determine whether the National Capital Region and the four nearby provinces placed under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) would shift to the more relaxed general community quarantine (GCQ) after August 18.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana made this remark Thursday when asked on whether MECQ status of NCR and the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal will be extended or not amid the changing trend in the number of cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

“We will have an IATF meeting tomorrow (Friday).

We will come up with our recommendation to the President,” he said in a message to the Philippine News Agency.

Lorenzana earlier said the country cannot continue imposing lockdowns as there is a pressing need to do something to reopen the economy.

President Rodrigo Duterte earlier placed Metro Manila and Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal under a two-week MECQ starting August 4 until August 18 due to the rise in the number of Covid-19 cases.