President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday night directed the Education department to cancel the plan to resume face-to-face classes on January 2021 in areas deemed low-risk for coronavirus transmission.
Duterte said he does not want to take the risk of endangering children after a new COVID-19 variant was detected in the United Kingdom.
“I’m calling back the order and I will not allow face-to-face classes for children until we are through with this.”
“We have to, I said, we have to know the nature of the germ that we are confronting. Wala pa tayong alam (We know nothing yet). I cannot take the risk of allowing the children,” he added.
A new variant of SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in the United Kingdom, and has already made its way to other countries such as France and Singapore. The COVID-19 Inter-Agency task force earlier suspended all incoming flights from the UK from Dec. 24 until Dec. 31.
On December 14, Duterte approved the proposed dry run of face-to-face classes in select schools in areas that will be considered at low risk for Covid-19.
