Metro Manila Under Alert Level 1 Until July 15

President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will begin his term with Metro Manila under the most lenient alert status despite the rising number of COVID-19 infections in the capital region.

Metro Manila, the Philippines’ economic center, will remain under Alert Level 1 from July 1 to 15, Malacañang announced on Tuesday, June 28.

A majority or 85 of 121 provinces, highly urbanized cities and independent component cities, and 166 of 744 other component cities and municipalities will be under the least restrictive status during the first half of July.

Business establishments and venues for social gatherings in Alert Level 1 areas may be filled to their capacities.

Acting presidential spokesman Martin Andanar said the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) on Tuesday approved the recommendations of its data analytics sub-technical working group on the new matrices to be used for the alert level system.

Under the new matrices, the two-week growth rate is no longer an indicator in determining case risk classification. Case risk classification would be based on average daily attack rates and their current thresholds.

Total beds utilization rate and its current thresholds will remain as the main metric for health system capacity. The assignment of alert level will also be based on the revised cross tabula-tion of total beds utilization rate and average daily attack rate.

Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire confirmed the revision in the alert metrics.

“In the revised alert level metrics, we got rid of the two-week growth rate. Though we will still take note of the daily attack rate or ADAR, and the health care utilization rate but we will give more weight to bed utilization rather than the number of cases,” she said.

“We revised our daily case bulletin because we do not want the public to give focus on the numbers. What we want is for them to know that there are cases but how many of these are se-vere and critical, how many were hospitalized, are the hospitals in full capacity or not and what level are we as to vaccination of the entire population,” she added.

The IATF has also placed a number of provinces and cities under the stricter Alert Level 2 from July 1 to 15.

Under the alert status, indoor establishments may only use up to half of their capacities while outdoor venues are allowed a maximum capacity of 70 percent.

22,000 cases

Even as Metro Manila will remain under the most lenient alert level, Vergeire said daily cases nationwide may jump to over 22,000 by the end of July.

At an online media forum, Vergeire said that current projections show that cases may surge from the current 848 (June 26) to as high as 22,187 by July 31 depending on the extent of the public’s compliance with minimum health protocols.

“Following the baseline scenario of 21 percent decline in our minimum public health standards from Feb. 14, we may have 17,105 cases per day by the end of July. It is within the range of 12,451 up to 22,187 of possible numbers depending on the rate of decline in compliance with the minimum public health standards (MPHS),” she said.

By the middle of July, Vergeire said there is also a possibility that daily cases may reach 5,362 if there is a 22 percent decline in health protocol compliance.

“Numbers may be slightly better at 3,827 and 4,606 daily cases by mid-July if there is 20 percent and 21 percent decrease, respectively, in health protocol compliance.

“If mobility continues to increase, compliance to MPHS continues to reduce and booster uptake is maintained at this low level, we may see 3,800 to 5,300 daily cases nationally by mid-July,” she said.

Vergeire said another factor that may push daily cases would be the continued low number of boosted individuals.

“Based on these projections, cases may really go up if we continue to reduce compliance to the health protocols and people won’t get vaccinated and boosted,” Vergeire said.

She noted that the uptrend in cases is being sustained across all regions in the country.

“NCR maintains steep increase in reported cases, while the remaining areas also show increase in cases but remain at less than 150 cases per day,” Vergeire said.

The official said the national positivity rate is at 4.1 percent, while the ADAR remains at less than one per 100,000 population.

“Despite this, more than half of the active COVID-19 cases remain to be asymptomatic and mild. The number of severe and critical cases remains less than 1,000 despite the continuous in-crease in cases. This is the reason why the health care utilization rates remain at low risk in the majority of the country,” she added.

She also revealed the detection of 63 additional cases of COVID-19 Omicron subvariants in the country.

The cases comprise 50 additional BA.5 cases, 11 additional BA.2.12.1 cases and two additional BA.4 cases.

“At the moment, exposure of individuals is still unknown and travel histories are being verified,” she said.