By CONSUELO MARQUEZ, GMA News

Starting Sept. 16, the Department of Health (DOH) will assign alert levels to each pilot area, which will be done weekly for the duration of the pilot implementation.

Close contacts of COVID-19 patients or probable coronavirus cases will be required to finish their 14-day quarantine even if they are vaccinated and have tested negative for the virus, the national government said in its newly released guidelines for alert level systems.

The Guidelines on the Pilot Implementation of Alert Levels System for COVID-19 Response in the National Capital Region document was released on Monday as "a new classification framework to further curb the spread of COVID-19 and its variants."

Starting Sept. 16, the Department of Health (DOH) will assign alert levels to each pilot area, which will be done weekly for the duration of the pilot implementation.

Local government units will submit on a daily basis their respective Regional Inter-Agency Task Force (RIATF) such data as determined by National Government Agencies based on the template provided for by the IATF Sub-Technical Working Group on Data Analytics.

Minimum public health standards will still be implemented at all times during the alert level systems.

The following are the classifications of each alert level system:

Alert Level 1 - refers to areas wherein case transmission is low and decreasing, total bed utilization rate, and intensive care unit utilization rate is low. Alert Level 2 - refers to areas wherein case transmission is low and decreasing, healthcare utilization is low, or case counts are low but increasing, or case counts are low and decreasing but total bed utilization rate and intensive care unit utilization rate is increasing. Alert Level 3 - refers to areas wherein case counts are high and/or increasing, with total bed utilization rate and intensive care unit utilization rate at increasing utilization. Alert Level 4 - refers to areas wherein case counts are high and/or increasing, with total bed utilization rate and intensive care unit utilization rate at high utilization. Alert Level 5 - refers to areas wherein case counts are alarming, with total bed utilization rate and intensive care unit utilization rate at critical utilization.

-- BM, GMA News