LUCENA CITY 鈥撯�� Batangas province recorded 222 new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases and five more deaths on Tuesday, authorities said.
The Provincial Health Office (PHO), in its 3 p.m. bulletin issued on March 30, reported that the five deaths were from Batangas City (1), Lipa City (1), and in the towns of Balayan (2) and San Jose (1).
The province still has 1,930 COVID-19 patients.
At least 54 Batangas City employees contracted the virus last week, the provincial public information office (PIO) disclosed.
Lipa City has the highest active cases with 488, followed by Tanauan City, with 176.
As of March 30, Batangas, which is still under the strict general community quarantine (GCQ) status, had 15,537 COVID-19 patients since the pandemic was declared in March last year. At least 13,136 of them have recovered.
Batangas City has recorded the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the province with 2,774, followed by Lipa City, 2,118, and Tanauan City, 1,587.
The latest data showed that 107 patients had died due to the illness since the start of 2021. Last year, the province recorded 364 COVID-19 deaths.
The COVID-19 death toll in the province jumped to 471.
Gov. Hermilando Mandanas, in his Executive Order No. 2HIM-03, said the continuous increase of COVID-19 cases in the province 鈥渉as necessitated the enforcement of stricter guidelines especially during the Holy Week.鈥�
He ordered the strict implementation of safety protocols under the latest guidelines from the national Inter-Agency Task Force.
Mandanas also ordered the establishment of more isolation facilities in strategic areas in the province to contain the continuous spike of COVID-19 cases.
Once the authorities have successfully stopped the rising cases, the additional facilities could also serve as evacuation centers for the possible influx of evacuees if the now restive Taal volcano erupted again, according to the Batangas PIO.