MANILA — The entire National Capital Region, except for the city of Manila, is under the highest alert level for coronavirus due to increase in new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, the Department of Health said Monday.

"All areas except the City of Manila are classified as Alert Level 4. The Delta variant of concern had been detected across all areas in the National Capital Region," Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a press briefing.

Based on the DOH metrics, Alert Level 4 is raised if more than 70 percent of hospital bed capacity is occupied and the area is under moderate to critical risk for COVID-19.

According to Vergeire, the capital region has a positive 2-week growth rate, high-risk average daily attack rate and high-risk case classification.

"The regional health systems capacity is at high-risk with ICU utilization at 74 percent," she said.

In NCR, Quezon City has the most number of active coronavirus infections with 7,800, as of Sept. 5. It is followed by Manila (5,005), Caloocan City (3,826), Pasig City (3,561) and Makati City (3,529).

In the case of Manila, its bed utilization rate was at 65.47 percent and ICU utilization at 61.75 percent.

Manila City is under Alert Level 3, as it falls within the moderate to critical risk classification, and has no more than 70 percent in COVID-19 bed utilization or ICU utilization rate.

During the briefing, Vergeire said the capital region, which is home to around 13.5 million people and accounts for about a third of the country's economy, continues to register an upward trend in reported cases, which increased by 13 percent against the past 7 days.

"In NCR, the 7-day moving average shows continuous increasing trend as cases in the recent 7 days have exceeded the previous 7 days by 574 cases," she said.

From Aug. 30 to Sept. 5, Metro Manila has an average daily reported case of 4,974, Vergeire added.

The region was placed under modified enhanced community quarantine from Aug. 21 until Sept. 7 to arrest the spread of COVID-19 after the detection of the Delta variant in the country. The strictest enhanced community quarantine was implemented on Aug. 6-20.

The country on Sunday registered more than 20,000 new cases for the third straight day, bringing the total recorded infections to 2,080,984. Its first confirmed case was recorded on Jan. 30 last year in a Chinese woman who arrived from Wuhan City, China where the disease is believed to have first emerged.

The government continues to rollout its COVID-19 vaccination program, administering more than 34.1 million doses as of Sept. 1, according to the monitoring of the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group.

More than 14.1 million people are already fully vaccinated, accounting for 19.91 percent of the target 70.8 million to achieve herd immunity.

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