Iloilo City has been reclassified from general community quarantine (GCQ) to modified general community quarantine (MGCQ), the least restrictive lockdown level.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said yesterday, Jan. 1, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) approved the city’s appeal to downgrade its quarantine status.

Iloilo City was initially included in the list of areas placed under GCQ from January 1 to 31, 2021.

Mayor Jerry Treñas said they made the appeal “for the sake of the morale of the members of the Iloilo City COVID-19 Team, who have tirelessly done everything to lower the transmission in the city.”

“I think it would be really unfair if the efforts of the COVID-19 Team were not recognized by the National IATF by changing the classification of Iloilo City from GCQ to MGCQ, considering that the number of cases in the city has dropped by several notches,” he said.

Based on the Jan. 1 bulletin issued by the Department of Health, the city logged a total of 4,667 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Majority or 4,397 of those infected patients in the city have recovered from the disease while 149 have died.

The city now has only 149 remaining active virus carriers.IMT