MANILA - Malacañang has placed the provinces of Apayao, Laguna and Aklan under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) from August 1 to 15.

In a statement released Sunday, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said President Rodrigo Duterte approved the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force to reclassify the Laguna and Aklan from general community quarantine with heightened restrictions to MECQ, while Apayao was re-classified from GCQ to MECQ.

The quarantine classification of the province of Cebu, on the other hand, was downgraded from MECQ to GCQ with heightened restrictions, also from Aug. 1 to 15.

The IATF, likewise, approved the shortening of detection to isolation of cases to less than five days, which includes the tracking of active cases in all areas, prioritizing those with clustering of COVID-19 cases, as well as tracing of close contacts of all suspect, probable and confirmed cases within 24 hours of detection of a case.

Facility-based isolation and quarantine should also be prioritized to prevent household transmission, the IATF said.

Duterte previously approved the decision to place Metro Manila under the strictest of four lockdown levels, the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), from Aug. 6 to 20 to arrest the spread of the highly transmissible COVID-19 Delta variant.

• NCR under ECQ from Aug. 6-20 to curb COVID-19 Delta variant spread: Palace

As of Sunday, the Philippines has a total of 1,597,689 COVID-19 cases, with 28,016 deaths and 63,646 active cases.

• Philippines' COVID-19 death toll breaches 28,000; over 8,000 new cases confirmed

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