Sen. Joel Villanueva during one of the Senate deliberations. File photo from Senate PRIB / A. Calvelo, V. Domingo
MANILA, Philippines — Senator Joel Villanueva on Monday appealed to the Department of Health (DOH) to reconsider the shortened period of the quarantine protocols for fully vaccinated health workers, saying “the path to recovery knows no shortcuts.”
“We appeal to DOH officials to reconsider its position on shortening the quarantine period for fully-vaccinated healthcare workers who are infected with COVID-19,” Villanueva said in a statement.
“Cutting short their isolation puts at risk both healthcare workers and patients they care for in our medical facilities,” he added.
“Not only does it endanger” the healthcare workers, the senator stressed that the frontliners’ families who they go home to after their shifts are also put at risk.
“As we’ve seen in the nearly two years of the pandemic, the path to recovery knows no shortcuts,” Villanueva added.
“Unless there is sufficient science-based data to support the [DOH’s] directive,” Senator Panfilo Lacson, for his part, said he “will take the side” of the health workers who are concerned about the shortened period of quarantine for fully vaccinated medical frontliners
“As long as the shortened isolation period is science-based and not a reaction to the overwhelming infection rate, we should not have a problem with that,” Lacson said.
“While in my case, the original 14-day quarantine period that should end on Jan. 18 is now reduced to 10 days, which sounds good to me — that is not the point,” he added.
This, as he pointed out that “health is everything,” especially with the “almost uncontrollable spread of the virus that we are seeing now.”
On Monday, the Department of Health reported an all-time high increase in COVID-19 cases as it confirmed 33,169 additional infections in the country.