MMDA hopes for eased quarantine restrictions as COVID-19 growth rate slows

The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) on Saturday expressed hope that the quarantine status in the National Capital Region (NCR) will be lowered to a general community quarantine.

“If this trend will continue, I’m sure we’re going to GCQ,” MMDA chairman Benhur Abalos said in Dano Tingcungco's report on “24 Oras Weekend.”

Abalos said that the NCR growth rate of new COVID-19 cases had eased from 164% from February 28 to March 7 to 5% from March 31 to April 17.

He said that most of the local government units have also reported a decrease in COVID-19 cases.

“‘Yung mga kaso ngayon hindi na nag pla-plateu. Pababa na eh, for the last seven days. So hopefully by that time, ma decongest ang mga nasa hospitals,” he said.

(The COVID-19 cases right now are no longer plateauing. They’re going down for the last seven days. So hopefully, by that time, our hospitals could be decongested.)

“But you know we could always tell them, we could go to granular lockdowns,” he added. — Joahna Lei Casilao/DVM, GMA News