An official of the Department of Health (DOH) on Friday revealed they are now studying the recommendation of possible lifting of the mandatory use of face masks for fully vaccinated individuals.
“What we are doing now is that, we are studying such recommendation if we can also apply this in specific bubbles,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said. She, however, did not say who gave the recommendation.
Vergeire said that “experts,” together with the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases are already studying the recommendation.
“Magbibigay po tayo ng impormasyon [We will give an information on this matter later],” she said.
However, in lifting of such restriction, she stressed, that the status of the health-care utilization rate should also be considered.
In the US , the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced that fully vaccinated individuals no longer need to wear a mask, at least in most situations.
Earlier, Vergeire said there is still no enough evidence to prove that it is already safe to remove face masks for inoculated individuals.
“So we retain our position, hindi pa rin ho kami magrirekomenda ng ganitong pagtatanggal ng mask kung kayo ay bakunado na [We still don’t recommend the removal of masks for those who already received their shots],” she then said.
As compared to the Philippines, Vergeire said that US and other nations already inoculated a large portion of their population.