A Department of Health (DOH) official said the decision to lower the Alert Level at the National Capital Region (NCR) from Three to Two is not sudden.

In Saturday's ''Laging Handa'' public briefing, Health Undersecretary Ma. Rosario Vergeire said the decision to ease the alert level in Metro Manila is based on different metrics used by the government.

"It is not a sudden decision... We just have a different timeline for the declaration... in NCR, but nevertheless we have based this on the different metrics that we used," she said.

"We saw that since last week or two weeks ago, the healthcare utilization has lowered and as of now the beds occupied in the hospitals are less than 50% and then the two week growth rate is negative," she added.

Vergeire said the DOH was also monitoring the average daily attack rate or the number of new cases recorded in NCR in the past week.

"Before it (average daily attack rate) was about 10, but now it has been reduced to just 5. So this is less than 7 that’s why they had been classified as low risk already and had been deescalated to Alert Level 2," she said.

It can be recalled that the easing of the alert level in Metro Manila was announced by Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque on Thursday night or just a few hours before the start of its implementation on Friday. Robina Asido/DMS