Bare Truth by Rose de la Cruz
Bare Truth

Reckless DepEd

Nov 5, 2022, 12:13 AM
Rose De La Cruz

Rose De La Cruz

Writer/Columnist

Making the wearing of face masks optional among primary and secondary grade students is quite irresponsible and reckless.

Children, of all people, are not mindful of their environments—where they play and who they speak with and handwashing, if not reminded them by parents—is the least of their concerns.

It would make them happy to remove those masks, like it made me happy not having to wear it outdoors, especially when walking my dogs alone. My reason being I do not interact with anybody on the road and I make sure that the hours I walk them are not busy or teeming with people.

But to make it optional for public schools—which are usually cramped and classrooms too congested with students of at least 50 in a room that can only decently hold 20 people—is just like making them breathe contaminated air.

It takes all kinds of people—from those living in informal settlements to those with rented homes or rooms—to be cramped in one space breathing and expelling the same air to introduce a virus that would spread like wildfire. Good if the room has big windows and has wall fans to circulate the air, but what if they are not?

Will the Department of Education answer for all the students and teachers who will get sick from breathing virus-contaminated air.

During the rainy season, such as what we have now, the air is dense and draft is prevalent such that when mixed with a virus from someone who sneezes or blows his nose is a formula for an epidemic like flu and what have you.

Of course, DepEd’s excuse is that President Marcos ordered the lifting of mandatory use of face masks indoors. But let me ask, is the President with his superfluously huge contingency and confidential intelligence funds be willing to use these funds to treat the people who will be contaminated in the process? I hope so, instead of just partying and flying here and there with people’s money.

DepEd’s Order 34 series of 2022 also barred blended or distance learning beyond October 31 (which I surmise could be due to: a) the learning poverty that has resulted from the remote learning methods forced upon us by the pandemic and b) so that the department would not part with its funds to buy overpriced and outdated gadgets for distance learning.

I agree with the Department of Health (and with the World Health Organization) that we should not let our guards down, just because things seem to be improving. Diseases, just like weather, behave erratically.

The DoH is still urging people to use “layers of protection” against COVID 19 and not rest on our laurels just yet.

As of Nov. 1, the DOH online COVID-19 Tracker shows 19,340 active COVID-19 cases nationwide.

Earlier, the DOH warned that virus transmission would probably increase during the observance of “Undas” — that is, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day — and during the Christmas holidays.

The DOH has also recently detected the XBB Omicron subvariant and XBC variant of COVID-19.

Both are believed to be highly immune-evasive, with the XBB tagged as the main driving force for the recent COVID-19 surge in Singapore, and the XBC being a combination of the BA.2 sub-lineage of the Omicron and Delta variants.


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