Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 15) — Health Secretary Francisco Duque, who heads the policy-making body in the government’s coronavirus response, has set conditions if ever the pilot testing of face-to-face classes will be allowed.
“Dapat siguraduhin muna na ang mga metrics na walang COVID cases sa isang lugar, nasa low-risk ang kanilang classification or walang reported daily new cases for the last 28 days,” Duque, who chairs the Inter-Agency Task Force, said Thursday in a Laging Handa briefing.
[Translation: They must follow the metrics that an area should have no COVID-19 cases, must have low-risk classification, or no reported daily new cases for the last 28 days.]
Others include vaccinating enough number of participating teachers and making sure that a locality’s healthcare system is capable of handling a surge in cases, the official said.
The conditions were Duque’s response when asked regarding the Department of Education’s revived proposal to try out face-to-face classes at the basic education level.
President Rodrigo Duterte has rejected previous attempts to bring students back to classrooms amid fears of coronavirus transmission, especially with the presence of more infectious variants in the country.
Quarantine restrictions have forced Filipino students to shift to remote learning in the last school year.
