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Keep COVID Alert Level 2 in January -- Guevarra

Philippines | National

Keep COVID Alert Level 2 in January -- Guevarra

By Jeffrey Damicog

Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra

Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra, a member of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), said he would prefer to maintain COVID-19 Alert Level 2 in the country in January.

“I would rather keep the Alert Level at 2 in January 2022 only as a precautionary measure against any possible spike that may arise after the Christmas season,” Guevarra said on Wednesday, Dec. 29.

“But if we remain at low risk despite our Christmas activities, I will support any move to de-escalate to Alert Level 1 and bring our country closer to normalcy,” he said.

Malacanang had announced that the country will remain under Alert Level 2 from Dec. 16 to 31.

Alert level 2 is the second most lenient classification under the five-tier Alert Level Systems (ALS) in the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Cabinet Secretary and Acting Presidential Spokesperson Karlo Nograles explained that the decision to keep Alert Level 2 nationwide was arrived at by the IATF due to continued threat of COVID-19 and its variants like Omicron.

"We are being very cautious because eto nga yung banta ng Omicron na nakikita natin sa ibang mga lugar, mga bansa, territories, and jurisdictions na may positive na Omicron lalo na local transmission ng Omicron, pataas ng pataas ang bilang ng Covid cases doon at marami pa tayong hindi nalalaman tungkol sa Omicron (because of the threat of Omicron we have been seeing in other countries, territories, and jurisdictions and we also don’t know a lot about Omicron yet),” Nograles said.

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