President Rodrigo Duterte may announce on Wednesday night the new quarantine classifications in the National Capital Region Plus and the rest of the country for the month of May, Malacanang said on Monday.

"The President may announce because the Talk to the People will be on Wednesday," Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in a televised press briefing when asked when Duterte is expected to make a decision regarding the new quarantine classifications for May.

The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases is set to hold a meeting on Tuesday and come up with the recommendation to Duterte.

Roque reiterated that the bases for the new quarantine classifications are the two-week attack rate and the healthcare utilization rate.

Asked if Metro Manila and the nearby provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal or NCR Plus are likely to shift to general community quarantine by next month, Roque cited the presentation of John Wong, an epidemiologist with the IATF sub-technical working group on data analytics, on the need for local government units to address first some factors that will prevent the spread of COVID-19.

"We need to look at the total health," he added.

In his presentation in the same briefing, Wong cited the indicators that will tell the government if NCR Plus is ready for GCQ.

In each city or municipality, he said the LGU should know how well the people are in complying with masking and social distancing and how fast they can identify people with symptoms and test, isolate, and quarantine them.

The LGUs should also know the percent of cases and close contacts complete their isolation and quarantine period, respectively, he said.

In indoor buinesses with crowds, it is also important to know how well are they observing the 2-out-of-3 rule - ventilation, masking, social distancing - and how fast can they increase the pace of vacciantion to 350,000 shots per day, the doctor added.

He said the national and local governments need to monitor and to report on how well they are performeing on these indicators.

Metro Manila and the four nearby provinces as well as a few other places in the country are under modified enhanced community quarantine, the second most restrictive quarantine classification, until April 30. The rest of the country are either under general community quarantine or modified GCQ.

With the continuous increase in COVID-19 cases, which already breached 1 million mark on Monday, Roque said the public should instead focus on the over 900,000 people who have recovered from the infection and the fatality rate, which is less than two percent.

On a bill at the House of Representatives to make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory amid still hesitancy of some Filipinos, he said Duterte has no position.

"What we see is the vaccine confidence is increasing that's why our problem is that the vaccines are not sufficient for those who want to get the jab," he said. Celerina Monte/DMS