An official of the One Hospital Command Center (OHCC) said Friday, Oct. 15, that the pilot implementation of the alert system in the National Capital Region (NCR) helped control the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in the region.

“In terms sa implementation dito sa NCR, nakatulong siya dahil na-control yung mga cases natin sa ground (In terms of the implementation in NCR, it helped because our cases on the ground were controlled),” Dr. Marylaine Padlan of the OHCC said in a public briefing.

Padlan was referring to the pilot implementation of the COVID-19 alert level systems in Metro Manila, which began last Sept. 16.

Under this setup alert levels ranging from 1 to 4 will be imposed over the region, with strictest restrictions in place under Alert Level 5.

“Nakita naman natin, bumababa yung daily cases natin, so mas kumunti yung nagre-require ng isolation facilities o ng hospitalization (We have seen that our daily cases are decreasing, so there are now fewer who are requiring isolation facilities or hospitalization),” she said.

Compared during the surge, Padlan said the OHCC can now refer more patients at a faster rate following the decline in the number of infections in the region.

Meanwhile, the OHCC medical officer said the average number of calls that the government’s hospital referral system received over the past week was at around 200 to 300.

“Nung nakaraang linggo ng October, same pa rin ‘yung trends namin. ‘Yung request na nare-receive namin (Just last week, our trends were still the same. The request we are receiving) per day still ranges between 200 to 300,” she said.

Padlan said most of the calls came from the National Capital Region (NCR), but she noted that the OHCC also caters to calls from regions outside the metropolis.

“But compared to our surge last August and September, definitely talagang bumaba ‘yung ating mga number ng kaso (the number of cases have really dropped),” she said.