Metro Manila may remain under Alert Level 2 until the end of the month, Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Ano said on Sunday.

In a radio interview, Ano said the alert level system in Metro Manila from February 16 to 28 will be discussed during the IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force) meeting on Monday.

"One of the matters that will be discussed is if Metro Manila is now ready for Alert Level 1. We do not yet have an answer on that. We will still wait for the presentation of the technical working group on data analytics," he said.

"According to DOH (Department of Health) it (Metro Manila) is still under moderate risk not yet in lower risk. So it is possible that we will continue with Alert Level 2, especially now that the campaign for national candidates has already started. Because when we say Alert Level 1, only the minimum public health standard will remain and 100 percent of all the activities will be allowed," he added.

Ano stressed the importance of carefully shifting to a much more relaxed alert level to prevent another surge of COVID-19.

"Our strategy is to prevent our health facilities from getting overwhelmed... so we should carefully study the daily attack rate. In Metro Manila, (the average daily attack rate) still at 10.5. For us to say that we are now safe is at least 7 and below so we should monitor that before we go to Alert Level 1," he said.

"We understand what our economic sector were saying that they want our economy to recover immediately, we all want that but we should be careful so that we will not regret later," he added. Robina Asido/DMS