Garin seeks prepositioning of anti-viral meds vs. COVID-19

Iloilo Representative and former Health secretary Janette Garin on Thursday  called on the Department of Health to preposition antiviral medicines for COVID-19 in light of the government's plan to make wearing of face masks outdoor optional.

“We need to take this with a grain of salt. With the lifting of the mask mandate, it is imperative that the Department of Health preposition antivirals so that the burden of health expenditure for moderate and severe cases will not be passed on to the people,” Garin said in a statement.

The lawmaker was referring to the recent recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to make the wearing of face mask in open spaces or non-crowded outdoor areas with good ventilation optional.

GMA News Online reached out to the DOH for comment on Garin's statement but has yet to receive a reply as of posting time.

Garin said that while at least 72 million Filipinos are already fully vaccinated against COVID-19, only 18.3 million received booster shots.

"While everybody is already experiencing pandemic fatigue and favors voluntary wearing of face masks, such policy [of making wearing face masks optional) should be met with immense readiness as this may cause the rise of COVID-19 cases anew," she said.

“It is a fact that the definition of a fully vaccinated person has been compromised by the Delta and Omicron variants. Waning immunity or the protection from the original shots has begun to decline," she added.

Garin said wearing a face mask is highly effective in preventing COVID-19 transmission, and this was the same case during the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003.

She also cited a study conducted by the Microbiology Department of the  University of Hong Kong published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases Medical journal in 2020 showing that  coronavirus transmission rate via respiratory droplets or airborne particles dropped by as much as 75% when surgical masks were used.

Garin advised the public that it is still better to continuously wear masks or until the country's booster vaccine rate improves.

"Put on masks, they actually protect other people especially when masks are worn by infected asymptomatic individual,” she added.—AOL, GMA News