The government has temporarily suspended the shortened quarantine period for fully vaccinated individuals, who had close contact with suspected or confirmed Covid-19 cases.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the individuals will now be required to undergo 14-day quarantine instead of just 7 days as stipulated by Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) Resolution 124-B, Series of 2021.

IATF Resolution 124-B allows fully vaccinated individuals to undergo a shortened 7-day quarantine, provided they remain asymptomatic in the said period.

"The decision to temporarily suspend said protocol is part of the continued implementation of proactive measures to slow down the surge in Covid-19 cases and to stop the further spread of the variants," Roque said in a news statement.

The suspension is contained under IATF Resolution 132, Series of 2021, which was issued last Tuesday.

Since last week, the number of daily Covid-19 cases registered by the Department of Health (DOH) soared to over 8,000 compared to the average of just over 5,000 last month.

Health officials attributed the spike in daily cases to the local transmission of the Delta variant of the Covid-causing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

President Duterte placed several parts of the country, including Metro Manila under lockdown, in an attempt to contain the spread of infection.

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