A curfew will be reimposed in Caloocan City, and residents will be required to use quarantine passes again to control the rising number of COVID-19 cases.
Mayor Oscar Malapitan said in an online statement released today that the 10pm to 4am curfew will be reimposed starting March 10, Wednesday. More details will be announced about the color-coded quarantine passes that residents have to use when visiting groceries and wet markets, the mayor added.
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GMA News Online reported that Malapitan decided to reimpose the curfew after a meeting with several leaders. As of yesterday, Caloocan has 105 active cases, a little higher than the 80 cases recorded in November.
OCTA Research Group, which tracks the country’s COVID numbers, announced yesterday that it expects the Philippines to record 5,000 to 6,000 cases each day until the end of March based on the current reproduction rate, which stands at 1.66.
The reproductive number measures the number of people a patient can possibly infect. A densely populated area, such as Metro Manila, will have a higher R-number than a place with fewer people. Experts have said that an area should ideally have an R-number that is below 1 because anything higher than that will lead to a significant increase in COVID-19 patients.
The Philippines has started vaccinating its healthcare workers against COVID, the last in Southeast Asia to do so. As of yesterday, there are 594,412 cases, including 545,853 recoveries and 12,516 deaths.
