Despite COVID positivity rate rising in Metro Manila, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has allowed the voluntary wearing of face masks in outdoor settings, particularly in open spaces and non-crowded outdoor areas with good ventilation.
Malacanang has released Executive Order 3, effective immediately, allowing voluntary wearing of face masks in outdoor settings and reiterating the continued implementation of minimum public health standards during the state of public health emergency relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under the EO, those who have yet to complete their primary COVID-19 vaccination series, senior citizens, and immunocompromised persons are still “highly encouraged” to use face masks.
Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles said the policy will be reviewed if the voluntary face mask policy would cause an increase in COVID-19 cases.
Cruz-Angeles said physical distancing and other minimum public health standards will also continue to be strictly enforced.
The EO still requires face masks to be worn in indoor, private or public establishments, including in public transportation by land, air or sea and in outdoor settings where physical distancing cannot be maintained.
The EO followed a report by the independent OCTA Research Group that the seven-day COVID-19 positivity rate in Metro Manila, where 13 million of the country’s 114 million population live, rose by 1.2 percent – from 12.1 percent on September 2 to 13.3 percent on September 9.
The increase was seen after an average of 10,247 daily RT-PCR tests were done over the past week.
The COVID-19 RT-PCR Test is a real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT -PCR) test, which can be run in a singleplex format (three individual assays for each of the three SARS-CoV-2 targets) or multiplexed into a single reaction (containing all 3 SARS-CoV-2 targets) and amplification set up.
The Geneva-based World Health Organization sets a 5 percent positivity benchmark for declaring that COVID in a particular area is under control.
At the same time, OCTA noted that the reproduction number, referring to the number of new cases caused by one infected individual also rose from 0.93 on August 31 to 1.11 on September 7.
The reproduction number has increased to greater than one, which means, according to OCTA Research fellow Dr. Guido David, “infections are increasing.”
Cruz-Angeles said the voluntary wearing of face masks will be implemented in phases or stages to gather feedback from health authorities.
The EO still requires face masks to be worn in indoor, private or public establishments, including in public transportation by land, air or sea and in outdoor settings where physical distancing cannot be maintained.
“We’re doing this in stages, in phases so that we can have feedback on whether or not these new policies are working and how to make them more efficient so that hopefully by the end of the year we might be able to be voluntarily masked indoors as well,” she said.
