The entire province of Iloilo will be placed under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) for 15 days.

The escalation of the province’s community quarantine status from modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) to MECQ was announced by President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday night, June 14.

The MECQ classification will take effect tomorrow, June 16, until the end of the month.

Early this month, the University of the Philippines’ (UP) OCTA Research Group flagged the province as an area of concern due to the spike in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases during the May 24-30period.

Based on data from the Provincial Health Office (PHO), the province has 2,420 active cases of COVID-19 as of June 14.

Since the start of the pandemic last year, the province logged a total of 9,747 confirmed cases, of which 72.76 percent or 7,092 have recovered and 2.42 percent or 235 have died.

Meanwhile, Iloilo City will remain under MECQ. It’s active case count currently stands at 2,734, the highest in the whole Westenr Visayas region.IMT