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To ditch or not to ditch? Isko, Salvana face off on face shield use

As many countries ditched the use of face shields in public, Manila Mayor Isko Moreno and infectious diseases expert Dr. Edsel Salvana discussed on Unang Hirit on Friday whether or not the same policy should be implemented in the Philippines.

As expected, the two stood by their previous pronouncements -- with Moreno saying the government should reconsider the policy and Salvana saying the time is not yet right to eschew such "added layer of protection."

"'Yung posam tsaka etneb araw-araw sa pagbili ng face shield, mabigat 'yan sa isang nahihirapan sa buhay," Moreno said, citing the unemployment or underemployment of many people during the COVID-19 crisis.

(The P10 and P20 everyday for the purchase of face shields is a burden for one who is struggling in life.)

Meanwhile, Salvana cited studies that face shields are added layers of protection against the coronavirus.

"The mask is imperfect, the physical distancing is imperfect, the face shield is imperfect, but if you will use layers of imperfect intervention, they make up for each other's shortcomings," Salvana, an Inter-Agency Task Force advisor, said in a mix of Filipino and English.

Salvana said the protection from wearing both face masks and face shields is equivalent to that of wearing double face masks, which is recommended by American immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci amid the emergence of new variants of the coronavirus. --Jamil Santos/KBK, GMA News