The President asked the IATF, the temporary government body in charge of the administration’s response to the pandemic, to give him a visual report on the effects of reducing physical distance so he could understand it more easily.
Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade told the House of Representatives on Tuesday that the rules to reduce physical distance between passengers on mass transport was “a product of research.” But Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said in a radio interview the local medical experts were not consulted and the new regulations had not been approved and should be rescinded.
At a press briefing on Tuesday, Roque insisted that the IATF last week approved the new measure after the National Economic and Development Authority presented data on how “you cannot open the economy without increasing access to public transportation.”
He maintained that no one objected to the new rules, whose implementation was left to the Department of Transportation (DOTr).
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Task force meeting
The dispute among the officials broke out on Monday night during a meeting of the President and some Cabinet officials in the IATF. The meeting was aired on national television on Tuesday morning.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III cited a study by the Health Professionals Alliance Against COVID-19, which warned that reducing physical distancing on public transportation might result in 686 daily infections in Metro Manila and increase the number of deaths.
Año, who recently recovered from a second COVID-19 infection, sided with Duque and the health experts.
Participating in the meeting with the President through videoconference, Año said the wearing of face shields and face masks only mitigated the risks, but the key factor in decreasing transmission was the 1-meter physical distance.
He said it would be “dangerous” to reduce the distance to 0.75 meter, then to 0.5 meter and later to 0.3 meter, which the DOTr started to implement on Monday.
Read more: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1335862/top-officials-disagree-on-new-distancing-rules-on-public-transport#ixzz6YArcGXaW
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