WASHINGTON, DC, USA—Instead of reimposing the face mask mandate, vaccination among young people should be prioritized again, President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. said.
This was Marcos his reply when asked if he is keen on ordering the return of the mandatory face mask policy in response to the rising cases of Covid-19 in the country. He said "we might have to think about it" because while the rate of increase is getting higher, the baseline is just low. Marcos hopes that the country would not reach that point where it has to reimpose the face mask mandate. He noted that there is sufficient opportunity to evaluate the situation. "So hopefully we’re still going to be able to do it," he said, referring to the review of preventive measures to be implemented by the government. "But it looks like, we will have to conduct again, especially for young people, we’ll have to conduct again a vaccination push para mabawasan na ‘yan (to reduce that)," he added. The President noted the importance of vaccination, especially on vulnerable individuals as their immune system is also at risk due to the heat season. "So we’ll look at it. Tingnan natin kung may guidance ang IATF, may guidance ang DOH (Let's see if there is a guidance from the interagency task force and the Department of Health). I think — I hope we don’t have to but we might but I hope not," he said. According to the DOH, more than 700 new Covid-19 cases were recorded on April 27, raising the number of active infections nationwide to nearly 5,000.