As far as former Department of Health (DOH) secretary-turned-Iloilo 1st district Rep. Janette Garin is concerned, the country can transition into adopting an optional mask policy only if at least 70 percent pf the population has received booster shots against Covid-19.

House reporters asked Garin during a press conference on Thursday, July 14 about her thoughts as to when the country could adopt an optional mask policy as well as on the subject of Covid-19 booster vaccination and bivalent vaccines.

“I would leave it to the Department of Health (DOH) to put in the determinants pero pag ako yung tanungin mo (but if you ask me), on my experience with public health…I think we can go into an optional mask policy if we reach a 70 percent boosted population,” Garin said.

As per figures from the DOH, some 15 million Filipinos have received at least one booster shot following their primary series dose of Covid-19 vaccines. The country’s population is around 110 million.

The lady solon said this means the boosted population is under 20 percent.

Garin, a doctor, previously served as DOH chief from February 2015 to June 2016 under the late President Benigno Aquino III's administration.

She explained that of the four core functions of a vaccine–first to prevent deaths, second to reduce hospitalization, third to reduce transmissions, and fourth to reduce mutations–Covid-19 variants had rendered the third function compromised, hence the need for masks.

“Apat kasi yung core functions ng bakuna…Simply because the third core function of vaccines has been compromised because of the variants, Delta and Omicron, kailangan natin i-abot ang (we need to reach) 70 percent booster population before we can go into an optional mask society,” Garin said.

“Kung titignan mo kasi yung mask, nakakababa ng transmission. Now ngayon pwede sana kung mas konti lang yung booster pwede kang magtanggal ng mask (Masks lower transmission. If there were less boosters , masks could be optional), she continued.

She then clarified that the 70 percent boosted population threshold was only her "personal take".

“That’s just my personal take, understanding the behavior of the virus and looking at the immunology point of view. Again, I leave it to the experts and the DOH to come up with a formula or a guideline to that transmission,” she explained.

“Pero kung titignan natin ang proteksyon na nangyayari (If you look at the protection that happened). If you have 70 percent of the population boosted, you can see that the possibility of having severe cases is very low kasi andudun kasi macocover mo yung population (because that is where the population is covered), the protection and scope is wide enough to protect those who are vulnerable, and at the same time the possibility of further mutations is not there…With the second generation vaccines, there is a high possibility that the third function of vaccines will be brought back,” Garin said.

A second generation or “bivalent” vaccine is one that's formulated to target specific variants of Covid-19 such as the Omicron strain, as opposed to a monovalent vaccine that only targets the original Covid-19 strain.