Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles says the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) would continue to escalate the alert level of provinces amd cities with rising coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases if figures breach the parameters.

Nograles, the acting presidential spokesperson, gave this response when asked during a virtual press conference if there was a chance that an Alert Level 4 would be imposed by the pandemic task force.

"Yes. Kagaya ng sinabi ko kanina, kapag kinakailangan itaas ang alert level ng isang lugar saan man dito sa ating bansa, kapag tumama sa parameters ng ating Alert Level System ay ginagawa naman po agad natin (Like what I said earlier, if there's a need to raise the alert level of any location in the country, we will immediately do it once the parameters of our Alert Level System are breached)," he said on Friday, Jan. 7.

The Philippines is currently grappling with a ferocious new surge in COVID-19 cases that's supposedly being fueled by the Omicron variant.

"Basta tumama sa mga parameters at kailangang i-escalate dahil tumama na nga po sa mga parameters, based on our decision metrics ay i-escalate (Once the parameters are breached and there's a need to escalate, then we will do so based on our decision metrics)," said Nograles, who also serves as IATF mouthpiece.

The Palace official earlier said that the Philippines was already considered "high-risk" for COVID-19 due the exponential increase in new infections since the last week of December.

The IATF gives general alert level classifications every two weeks; the current general classification for the coutnry is Alert Level 2.

But using the process that Nograles mentioned, the more stringent status of Alert Level 3 will have been hoisted over the National Capital Region (NCR)-plus (NCR, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal) and 14 other locations by Sunday, Jan. 9.

The Alert Level System (ALS) for COVID-19 response is a five-tier risk classification system, the most stringent being Alert Level 5. It replaced the region-wide quarantine classification system.

"Ginagawa natin iyan (We escalate in order) to restrict the movements, para po ma-restrict ang transmission at pigilan ang pagkalat ng COVID sa mga lugar na may nakikita po tayong mataas na bilang (we do that to restrict the transmission and stop the spread of COVID in areas where we see a rise in the numbers) and that includes iyong (the) two-week growth rate, that includes iyong (the) average daily attack rate and that includes iyong (the) hospital care utilization rate po natin," Nograles said.