Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Eduardo Año said the number of places under granular lockdown all over the country has been reduced to only 42 due to Alert Level System to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“Dahil po epektibo ‘yung ating ginagawang Alert Level System, ‘yung pagpapatupad ng ating minimum public health standard at ang ating massive na pagbabakuna, nakikita po natin na talagang mababa na ang ating mga cases (Because our Alert Level System, minimum public health standards implementation, and massive vaccination are effective, our COVID-19 cases now are really low),” Año reported to President Rodrigo R. Duterte during Monday night’s Talk to the People.

Año said the local government units in Metro Manila have stopped granular lockdowns due to decreasing COVID-19 cases.

Before the Alert Level System, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) has been imposing community quarantine classification to combat the pandemic.

Año said more guidelines have to be observed under Alert Level System but these allowed us to reopen the economy and provide more job opportunities to the people.

He also reported that violations of mass gatherings have gone down although authorities noticed that more people have not been observing the wearing of face masks and physical distancing.

The Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday logged 235 new COVID-19 cases, the lowest single-day infection in 18 months.

The active cases, the DOH said, also declined further to 10,526 as 780 more people recovered from the disease. The country now has 2,775,991 recoveries.

The DOH also recorded only 10 new deaths, which brought the country’s COVID-19 fatalities to 50,351.

According to DOH data on December 12, only 0.9 percent of 24,120 who were tested turned out positive for COVID-19. (PNA)