Businesses, workers fear Alert Level 4 in NCR

Some traders and workers fear that the National Capital Region (NCR) will be put under Alert Level 4 again due to the number of new COVID-19 cases.

If only 30 percent of capacity is allowed at current Alert Level 3 in businesses, such as dine-in restaurants and barbershops, it will fall to 10 percent at Alert Level 4.

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Alert Level 3 will only be in effect in NCR until January 15, but Malacañang said earlier that the region had not met the stricter alert level standards.

Also, according to large groups of traders, the Alert Level 4 is not yet needed.

According to the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), the companies themselves have added their own testing or stopped work to protect their employees.

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They also believe that even though the omicron variant spreads quickly, it is easier to treat, so cases are likely to decrease.

“For those [companies] who, maybe the urgency of production is not so pressing, they opt[ed] to stop for 3, 4 days. Some of them, it’s like 1 week,” said PCCI President George Barcelon.

Businesses, workers fear Alert Level 4 in NCR

According to the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), there is no need to raise the alert level based on the government’s policy, especially since the hospitals are not full.

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MAP also believes that the Philippines must learn to live with the virus and that solutions such as mass lockdown should not be repeated.

Earlier, Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said that Alert Level 4 is not needed yet because the number of people outside has been reduced.

For the third day in a row, the country on Monday recorded a new record high of new COVID-19 cases after the Department of Health reported 33,169 new cases, the highest daily figure since the pandemic began.

The number of COVID-19 infections in the Philippines has exceeded 3 million after it added more than 28,000 new infections, according to data from the Department of Health (DOH), Tuesday.

DOH reported 28,007 new cases today, ending the country’s three consecutive historic highs when it comes to newly infected with the deadly disease.

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