Health officials in the Philippines rushed to offer a correction after bombastic President Rodrigo Duterte urged Filipinos to disinfect their face masks with gasoline or diesel fuel.
“At the end of the day, hang [the mask] somewhere and spray it with Lysol if you can afford it,” Duterte said during a Tuesday speech. “For people who don’t [have Lysol], drench it in gasoline or diesel, and that son of a b—- COVID won’t stand a chance. Just find some gasoline [and] dip your hand [with the mask] in it.”
The following day, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire sought to explain away the strange and potentially dangerous advice as a possible joke.
“You know how the president speaks. It’s probably one of his jokes, especially [about] gasoline,” Vergeire said, according to Fox News. She noted that instead of using flammable substances, “Cloth masks should be washed every day, after every use. It should be washed and dried [under] the sun.”
“These masks have components, certain filtering mechanisms that, when washed, will be rendered ineffective against filtering the viruses, which is why they shouldn’t be washed. After use, or within eight hours, [these masks] should be discarded or replaced,” she added.
Duterte took an extreme law-and-order stance early on in the coronavirus pandemic. The authoritarian leader generated headlines in April when he threatened to kill anyone in the Philippines who resisted authorities during the nationwide coronavirus quarantine.
The country has registered close to 75,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 1,800 deaths associated with it. That number balloons to 15.2 million cases worldwide and more than 624,000 deaths.
