President Rodrigo Duterte delivers his penultimate State of the Nation Address at the Batasang Pambansa in Quezon City, July 27, 2020. Presidential Photo
MANILA - President Rodrigo Duterte will likely announce new community quarantine protocols on Thursday, July 30, Malacañang said Wednesday.
The new community quarantine guidelines will take effect on Aug. 1.
"...[I]t will be the President that will announce it on Thursday, if I am not mistaken. And there’s still appeals to be made by the local government units," Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in an interview with CNN Philippines.
The Palace earlier said that Metro Manila, which is under general community quarantine until July 31, may revert to the stricter modified enhanced community quarantine if COVID-19 cases surge past 85,000 by the end of the month.
There are 83,673 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Philippines as of July 28, of which 55,109 are active cases.
Roque also teased "major changes" in the government's coronavirus pandemic response starting Aug. 1.
"Let’s just say that things will not be the same, there will be major changes in our response to the pandemic," Roque said.
The government currently uses the test, trace, treat strategy in controlling the transmission of the virus that has infected more than 80,000 in the country.
"The people will now see the difference in the response that we will have, it is now thoroughly invigorated, and part of it is we build capacity and we now have the capacity to do what we wanted from the very beginning," Roque said.
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