By Robina Asido

The province of Laguna will continue to be placed under the strictest community quarantine until August 20, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said on Saturday.

Roque said "the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) has extended the ECQ of Laguna until August 20, 2021, upon the recommendation of the Department of the Interior and Local Government and after consultation with the local government of Laguna."

"Laguna was initially placed under ECQ until August 15, 2021, de-escalated to modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) beginning August 16 until August 31, 2021, until this present amendment of reverting to ECQ status," he said.

Roque said Laguna's "latest ECQ re-classification was made to maximize its effects, slow down the surge of COVID-19 cases, further stop the spread of variants and improve health system capacity to protect more lives in the aforesaid area."

"This is in pursuant with Executive Order 112 giving authority to the IATF to impose, lift, or extend a community quarantine in provinces, highly urbanized cities, and independent component cities," he said.

OCTA Research Fellow Guido David said earlier that the pace of COVID-19 infection in Cavite and Laguna are proving to be quick.

In OCTA Research's Calabarzon report on Friday, Laguna's reproduction number increased to 1.61 from 1.46 last week.

New cases in Laguna reached 585, up 57 percent last week, OCTA said.

''Hospital bed and ICU capacity were both at high levels,'' said OCTA. These were at 73 percent for both, it added. DMS