The Cebu City government on Monday announced that its voluntary face mask policy will be on trial period until December 2022, and will be automatically lifted should there be a surge in COVID-19 infections in the city.
In reading Executive Order (EO) No. 6, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama’s spokesperson Karla Henry-Ammann said the trial period of EO 5, which lifted the mandatory face mask use in the city, was set from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31, 2022.
“The same period is hereby referred to as the trial and observation period,” she added.
Ammann said the EO will be automatically lifted and the wearing of face masks in the city will be mandatory again if there is a surge of COVID-19 cases in Cebu City, as verified by the government.
Rama signed the EO on Monday during the city government’s flag ceremony.
Department of Health (DOH) officer-in-charge (OIC) Maria Rosario Vergeire on Wednesday said they were not consulted regarding the lifting of the mandatory face mask policy in Cebu City.
Vergeire stressed there will be a higher risk of infections in an area if the safeguards against COVID-19 are not in place, stressing that a face mask provides up to 80 percent protection against the coronavirus.
To loosen restrictions, Vergeire said certain conditions must be met, such as high vaccine booster uptake and low virus infections.
She said the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) was expected to convene Monday afternoon to discuss Cebu City’s voluntary face mask policy.
The former adviser of the National Task Against COVID-19 said the government could also monitor and see the outcome of the optional face mask policy in Cebu City, but supported the DOH’s advice for the continued use of face masks.
“If you ask me, we can take the time to see what will happen in Cebu, if they want to make the use of face masks optional outdoors. Let’s see if their cases will increase and if they can increase the number of residents getting boosters,” Dr. Ted Herbosa said in Filipino at a press briefing.
Herbosa said he supported the DOH’s view that the number of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines needed to be stabilized before such a policy was enacted.
The doctor also said he is in favor of extending the country’s COVID-19 state of calamity.
The DOH last week said it submitted a recommendation to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council to extend the state of calamity in the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Also on Monday, Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte appealed to health authorities to decide whether or not to lift the mask mandate.
He said if the mandatory use of face masks stays, the government should hand out free masks to the poor and low-income families.
“The obligatory use of new face masks every day is honored anyway more in the breach by poor Filipinos, many of whom save on their daily living expenses by putting on their masks for a week or two before replacing them,” he said.
He proposed a more relaxed policy as he backed the move by the Cebu City government to lift the obligatory use of masks in open spaces.
Villafuerte said that “in lieu of retaining this nationwide protocol a hundred percent or lifting it completely or partly, as what has been done in Thailand and Singapore, IATF could recommend to Malacañang a compromise policy.”
This would maintain the mandatory use of face masks only in Metro Manila and other places with still high caseloads while allowing local government units in low-risk areas elsewhere in the country to decide on whether to prolong this rule or lift it and let their respective constituents keep their masks on in public places only on a voluntary basis, the lawmaker added.