An infectious disease expert urged the government not to drop the mandatory wearing of face masks if it decides to place some areas under the Alert Level 0.

Currently, the government is studying the possibility of further lowering the Philippines' Covid-19 alert status, said Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco Duque III on Thursday, March 11.

Face mask wearing is an important part of the Covid-19 response, said Dr. Rontgene Solante, head of the Adult Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine unit of the San Lazaro Hospital in Manila.

“But, we still have to maintain yung mask natin (the mask protocol)—yung pagsusuot ng (the wearing of the) face mask even if we will be on Alert Level 0 because I think that’s the more important part of protection even if other limitations will be lifted,” said Solante during a public briefing on Friday, March 11.

“We presume that retaining the protocol of face mask , handwashing should be an important component to an Alert Level 0,” he added.

The government must first consider vaccinating 90 percent of the population before implementing the Alert Level 0, said Solante. A high vaccination rate could give confidence that the country can manage “spikes or a little spikes of the Covid-19” cases, he added.

“Ang isa sa importanteng factors dito kung ako ang tatanungin is kung sana maabot natin ang 90 percent vaccination rate ng population natin (In my opinion, one of the important factors is we have to reach 90 percent vaccination rate of our population),” said Solante.

On Thursday, DOH Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said that the government is aiming to fully vaccinate 70 million Filipinos by the end of this month and 90 million by the end of June. As of March 9, about 64 million Filipinos were already fully vaccinated against the viral disease.

Solante said the government should be cautious in implementing Alert Level 0 because the threat of more transmissible variants of coronavirus still remains.

“Yung sa Alert Level 0, nakita namin yan na kumbaga parang ordinary infection nalang ang pagtrato natin sa Covid-19, kagaya ng influenza, tuberculosis, or even dengue. But since we know that the Omicron variant is still in the community and mataas pa rin ang hawahaan and also an important factor there na yung vaccination natin hindi pa rin tayo umabot ng 90 percent (In Alert Level 0, it is as if we are treating Covid-19 like an ordinary infection such as influenza, tuberculosis, or even dengue. We know that the Omicron variant is still in the community and the transmission remains quite high. And also an important factor is that the vaccination rate still hasn't reached 90 percent),” he said.

“We have to be cautious in terms of interpreting data and at times yung padalos dalos na declare ng (the sudden declaration from) Alert Level 1 to Alert Level 0. I think that should be made in terms of very extensive evaluation and decision making. Dapat susuriin muna at hindi natin kaagad ibababa ,” he added.