Malacañang on Monday said the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Emerging Infectious Diseases would meet to review the guidelines for areas under Alert Level 3, as the country’s daily case count continued to rise.
“It is something that we will revisit,” acting Palace spokesman Karlo Nograles said in an interview over ANC, referring to Alert Level 3 guidelines.
Metro Manila on Monday was put under Alert Level 3 over increasing Covid-19 cases in the region.
Nograles urged the public to take “very high extra precautions” as the IATF had yet to review its guidelines.
It was unclear whether stricter mobility restrictions would be imposed, but Nograles said the IATF would consider the fact that the alert level system was crafted when vaccination numbers in the Philippines were still low.
“During that time, mababa iyong vaccination natin, during that time hindi pa natin nababakunahan iyong below 18. But right now, things are different. Right now, we are giving vaccination to 12 to 18 [year olds]. And then marami na sa mga senior citizens natin ang bakunado na,” he said.
“And mataas ang vaccination rate ng NCR. We understand that and that is the reason why, may meeting kami ng IATF tomorrow, one of the topics will be that, we will discuss that,” he added.
Metro Manila recorded 2,849 new Covid-19 cases on Jan. 3. It has more than 13,000 active cases. John Ezekiel J. Hirro