Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Monday warned the plan to shorten the physical distancing requirement in public transportation could lead to an additional 686 coronavirus cases every day.
National Task Force Against COVID-19 Chief Implementer Carlito Galvez Jr., however, warned against risk aversion, noting that virus transmission will remain low for as long as passengers will not remove their masks and will avoid talking and eating.
Duque cited a study conducted by the Health Professionals Alliance Against COVID which showed that reducing the one meter requirement to 0.75 meter, at a 50 percent ridership capacity, will lead to 20,580 additional cases per month.
"If you multiply that by 1.6 percent, that's our case fatality rate, that will be 3,951 (additional) deaths per year," the Health chief added.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque, however, reminded Duque that when the proposal was being discussed during a previous meeting of the Inter-agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases, the representative from the Department of Health registered no objection when it was adopted by the body.
Roque said the belated warning from the DOH made it appear that two departments — health and transportation — were in conflict over the proposal.
President Rodrigo Duterte said the IATF will discuss the proposal further on Wednesday as he asked the task force for a visual diagram of the proposal.