from philippine general hospital patients from march 22–28 suggest that there are at least two sources of viral transmission in the philippines; china, mainly from shanghai and from japan specifically through repatriated filipino seafarers of the diamond princess cruise ship. several measures were imposed to mitigate the spread of the disease in the country, including bans on travel to mainland china, hong kong, macau, and south korea. on march 7, 2020, the department of health (doh) raised its "code red sub-level 1," with a recommendation to the president of the philippines to impose a "public health emergency" authorizing the doh to mobilize resources for the procurement of safety gear and the imposition of preventive quarantine measures. on march 9, president rodrigo duterte issued proclamation no. 922, declaring the country under a state of public health emergency. on march 12, president duterte declared "code red sub-level 2," issuing a partial lockdown on metro manila for 30 days to prevent a nationwide spread of covid-19. the lockdowns were expanded on march 16, placing the entirety of luzon under an "enhanced community quarantine" (ecq). other local governments outside luzon followed in implementing similar lockdowns. on march 17, president duterte issued proclamation no. 929, declaring the philippines under a state of calamity for a tentative period of six months. additional facilities started to conduct confirmatory testing. on march 20, four facilities, namely the southern philippines medical center in davao city, vicente sotto memorial medical center in cebu city, baguio general hospital and medical center in benguet, and the san lazaro hospital in manila (where the first case was admitted to), began conducting tests as well augmenting the ritm. other facilities began operations as well in the following days. on march 25, the president signed the bayanihan to heal as one act, which gave him additional powers to handle the outbreak. april to may 2020 local government units under enhanced community quarantine as of april 8, 2020. by april, covid-19 had spread to all 17 regions of the philippines, with the confirmation of a case in april 6 of a patient confined at a hospital in surigao city who had been in the caraga region since march 12 after traveling from manila. president duterte on april 7 accepted the recommendation of the inter-agency task force for the management of emerging infectious diseases (iatf-eid) to extend the ecq in luzon until april 30. on april 17, it was reported that the country had been able to bring down the viral disease' reproduction number to 0.65 from 1.5, which meant that the average number of people a person could infect decreased from more than one to less than one. recent data at the time suggested that the country was doing better in "flattening the curve", but was warned of a "resurgence" and must ramp up mass testing in order to isolate cases and avoid further transmission of covid-19. sometime in late april, local government units (lgus) were no longer authorized to impose quarantine measures without the consent of the iatf-eid. prior to that period, lgus could impose such measures in coordination with the department of the interior and local government. the ecq in luzon was extended until may 15 in some areas. this included metro manila, calabarzon, central luzon (except aurora), pangasinan, and benguet. ecq measures were also extended in the provinces of iloilo and cebu as well as in davao city. other areas were downgraded or placed under general community quarantine (gcq). track of typhoon vongfong (ambo) on may 14, typhoon vongfong (local name: ambo) landed on samar island. in the philippines, tens of thousands of people who were locked out due to lockdowns were faced with the dual threat of typhoons and viruses, forcing complex and dangerous evacuation. at each shelter in the central part of the philippines, in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus infection, only half of the capacity was accepted, and a mask was required when evacuating. typhoon vongfong killed five people in the philippines. by the time vongfong landed, the number of confirmed infections was 11,618 and the number of deaths (due to infectious diseases) was 772 in the philippines. vongfong also approached manila, but due to severe restrictions on going out of manila, most people, including low-income people living in simple houses, could not go to shelters and were forced to wait at home. after may 15, the philippine government revised its quarantine classifications in correspondence to an earlier announcement that "science and economics will be considered for any changes of the lockdown measures." a modified enhanced community quarantine (mecq) was applied to metro manila, laguna and cebu city, while a gcq was raised to 41 provinces and 10 cities with moderate risk. meanwhile, 40 provinces and 11 cities that were considered "low-risk areas" were supposed to be released from community quarantine measures, but were eventually upgraded to a "modified general community quarantine" (mgcq) after a reportedly "honest mistake" from the national government and requests from respective lgus. once again, the philippine government revised its announcements and declared the entire country under gcq, while metro manila, laguna and cebu city continued to implement an mecq. this was temporary until guidelines of mgcq for low-risk areas were finalized. the iatf-eid also reportedly considered the reclassification of provinces and cities in central luzon as "high-risk areas" under mecq. after receiving petitions from lgus, the iatf-eid revised its quarantine policies yet again. cebu city and mandaue were placed under ecq, while metro manila, laguna, and central luzon (except for aurora and tarlac) were all under mecq. the remaining parts of the country were placed under gcq. june to july 2020 quarantine measures raised throughout the country started to loosen up on june 1, with areas formerly under ecq transitioning to a less strict quarantine. this led to a significant rise in the number of confirmed cases, as more areas implemented a gcq. the official start of classes in the elementary and secondary schools which customarily begin on june was postponed. the bayanihan to heal as one act expired within this month. according to the national government, the law expired on june 25, due to its sunset provision although there were interpretations that the law expired as early as june 5. senator sonny angara argued that per the constitution "emergency powers cease upon the next adjournment of congress" and that he considers the bayanihan act as an emergency measure. the national government maintains that the law was to expire on june 25. upon expiration of the law, the national government is not anymore obliged to hand out cash subsidies to families affected by community quarantine measures. the doh reported an overwhelmingly high number of recoveries on july 30, as the department began its "oplan recovery" to clear out its discrepancies with lgu counts. under the data reconciliation of the doh, starting from july 15, mild cases and asymptomatic cases will be recorded as recovered after 14 days from swab collection for testing. the first set of "mass recovery" was recorded on july 30 with 37,180 recoveries. from july 30, recovery reconciliations will be reported every 15 days. august 2020 on august 2, the philippines surpassed the 100,000 cases mark as the country continues to report around 2,000–3,000 cases a day. the country eventually had the most covid-19 cases in southeast asia when it finally breached indonesia's total number of confirmed covid-19 cases. a modified enhanced community quarantine (mecq) was placed in metro manila, bulacan, cavite, laguna, and rizal from august 4 to 18 as a response to the petition of medical front liners requesting an ecq in metro manila. in early august, the philippine health insurance corporation (philhealth) became involved in a corruption scandal, and its executives were alleged to have used the pandemic as a cover-up to steal billions of pesos. the philippine genome center (pgc) had detected a new variant of the sars-cov-2 virus originating in the philippines. the new variant is said to be globally dominant variant than other variants of the virus at the time of detection and has been associated with the sudden increase of new cases in july. by august 18, the doh has identified 1,302 covid-19 clusters throughout the country with the majority being located in metro manila. september to november 2020 on september 11, president duterte signed republic act no. 11494 or the bayanihan to recover as one act into law. president duterte then extended the period of the state of calamity until september 2021, through his proclamation no. 1021 filed on september 18. the iatf-eid also announced on september 18 that all cemeteries, columbariums, and memorial parks nationwide will be closed from october 29 to november 4 to prevent social gatherings traditionally conducted as part of the all saints' day observance. this is similar to the proposal made by metro manila mayors few days prior. covid-19 has spread to all provinces in the philippines by september 28, when batanes recorded its first case. december 2020 in mid-december, a new variant of sars-cov-2 known as lineage b.1.1.7 was identified in the united kingdom and is reportedly more contagious than earlier variants of the virus. this has led to several countries to restrict or ban travel from the united kingdom, including the philippines. the philippines also banned travel from 19 other nations which has reported cases of more-infectious variants of sars-cov-2. the doh announced in a briefing held in january 2021 that the u.k. variant is already in the philippines as early as december 2020. one of the samples collected by the health department on december 10 tested positive for the variant on january 21, 2021. january 2021 by january 2021, the doh is already monitoring at least two other noted mutations aside from the u.k. variant, namely the 501.v2 variant which originated from south africa and another variant from malaysia. on january 5, 2021, hong kong reported that they detected the u.k. variant from a 30-year-old woman who arrived in the city from the philippines on december 22, 2020, raising concerns that the strain may already be in the philippines. the following day, a joint doh–pgc study said that it has not detected the u.k. variant among 305 samples collected from november to december hospital admissions involving inbound travellers who have tested positive for covid-19 upon arrival in the country. epidemiologist john wong, who is part of doh's technical advisory working group, said in a press briefing on january 6 that if lineage b.1.1.7 establishes itself in the philippines, the total number of cases could rise about fifteen-fold. wong provided two scenarios which assumed there are 20,000 cases at the beginning of the month. in the first scenario, covid-19 has a r rate of 1.1 and the u.k. variant does not reach the philippines which project an increase of cases to 32,000 by the end of the month. in the second scenario where lineage b.1.1.7 does indeed establish itself in the country, the projected rise of cases could go as high as 300,000 in the same time period. on january 13, the doh announced that the u.k. variant has been detected in the country when a 29-year-old man from quezon city, who arrived in the country from the united arab emirates on january 7, tested positive for covid-19. 13 individuals who came in contact with the man also tested positive for covid-19 days later. on january 22, 16 new cases associated with the u.k. variant has been confirmed in several places in country including benguet, laguna, and mountain province. a case each in benguet and laguna had no known contact with a confirmed case or a travel history outside the country. the food and drug administration (fda) has issued emergency use authorizations (eua) to the pfizer–biontech and the oxford–astrazeneca covid-19 vaccines on january 14 and 28, respectively. february 2021 on february 18, the doh in central visayas announced that two mutations of sars-cov-2 were discovered in cebu. the mutations were classified as "mutations under investigation" and were tagged as e484k and n501y. march to april 2021 the doh announced the detection of the south african variant of sars-cov-2 in pasay on march 2. on march 12, lineage p.1, commonly known as the brazilian variant, was detected in the country, along with a "unique" variant originating from the philippines which was designated as the