MANILA - Nearly 37,000 violators of minimum public health standards were accosted in Metro Manila in the first three days of the implementation of alert levels and granular lockdowns, the Philippine National Police said Sunday.

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Of the 36,854 who were apprehended, half were given warnings, 44 percent were fined, and the remaining were taken to police stations to face charges for other offenses.

"Ang bilin natin sa ating mga pulis, instead na magsagawa ng checkpoint operations doon sa mga boundary, mas i-focus natin ang deployment kung saan nagtitipon-tipon ang ating mga kababayan," PNP chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar told ABS-CBN's TeleRadyo.

(I've ordered the police to focus deployment on where people gather instead of conducting checkpoint operations in boundaries.)

Some 93 areas in 38 barangays in 6 cities are placed under granular lockdown, he added.

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The government started on Sept. 16 its pilot implementation of a new 5-level alert mechanism that will go with granular lockdowns to both arrest the spread of COVID-19 and help spur the pandemic-battered economy.

As of Saturday, the Philippines has recorded a total of 2,347,550 confirmed COVID-19 cases, of which 184,088 are active.

Nearly 18 million individuals in the country have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, as of Sept. 16, representing more than 23 percent of the government's target to achieve herd immunity.