President Rodrigo Duterte approved his Cabinet’s proposal to tighten restrictions in metro Manila and nearby provinces for 15 days, following doctors’ recommendation to reimpose the lockdown as a spike in infections overwhelmed the health care system.
"This will unlikely to stop the selloff by investors, ” says Manny Cruz, strategist at Papa Securities Corp."There is perception a localized lockdown will not work anymore and a more stringent quarantine is needed since the infection is no longer in cluster but community wide. This could derail the expected third-quarter recovery.”
Local virus cases rose again by a daily record to 103,185 on Sunday, the second-highest in Southeast Asia. A total of 2,059 have died from the outbreak.