‘We don’t know where we are in the curve,’ says mass testing advocate
Published May 25, 2020 3:02:50 PM
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 25) — The national government should not rely on data from the Department of Health alone when easing quarantine restrictions, as the agency has yet to provide accurate data on coronavirus curve over the past months, a mass testing advocate warned.
Project ARK medical team leader Minquita Padilla said the national government should instead collaborate with local government units in fetching real-time data on COVID-19 cases before it declares a general community quarantine (GCQ) by June 1.
“We don’t even know where we are in the curve,” Padilla said during the virtual forum of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.
“Our DOH statistics are not accurate,” she pointed out. “They’re reporting cases everyday about 200+ new cases. We have been advocating if they could please report the cases as people are swabbed, diagnosed. That’s the only way we’ll see the real curve.”
She also urged the DOH to report deaths and admissions of patients in hospitals as they come in to reach greater accuracy in public data. The agency was also urged to ramp up its procurement and inventory of testing kits and other necessary equipment.
“We don’t even know where the deaths are,” Padilla said. “There’s no regularity in the data, that’s our problem.”
Meanwhile, Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin added that Metro Manila has to shift to the GCQ even if it is not ready, in order to recuperate from economic losses.
“Even if we are not ready [to shift to GCQ], we have to,” said Garin, a former health secretary. “However, we were not able to enhance our testing capacity so we are locked in the situation.”
Garin reiterated her plea to include asymptomatic patients in the government’s expanded testing efforts, noting that 40 to 50 percent of them could essentially trigger another wave of infections.
“Whether to test or not to test, it’s a no-brainer,” she said. “We really have to test.”
“We agree it’s not that easy to trace all the asymptomatics but we are not saying we are going to identify all the carriers,” she added.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque clarified on Monday that the government’s testing capacity is now at 32,000 per day by the end of the month. He mistakenly mentioned during the briefing that this target was already achieved.
The Department of Health noted that this estimate was based on existing resources and the maximum capacity of all licenses laboratories in the country.
However, the actual capacity of the country still stands at 8,500 to 9,500 a day, the DOH said.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III also mistakenly said in a Senate hearing last week that the country is already on the second wave, citing significant decrease in new cases.
Following backlash, the agency then backtracked and noted that the country is still in the first wave driven by local community transmission.
There are over 14,000 confirmed cases of the viral disease in the Philippines to date, with over 800 deaths and more than 3,000 recoveries.
