After weeks of saying that the COVID-19 situation in the Philippines does not warrant mass testing, the Department of Health (DOH) has finally acknowledged the increased public demand in testing.
Following public demand for mass testing since the lockdown in NCR was announced on March 12, the health department said in a morning press briefing on April 4 mass testing is being conducted.
DOH Undersecretary and spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said that 19,000 tests have been conducted as of April 4 and said mass testing is ongoing. It was unclear when Vergeire said these were the number of unique individuals but that the number included retests.
The DOH NCov tracker showed at the time of Vergeire’s briefing that 5,267 tests were done, with 3,018 confirmed cases, 1,349 negative, and 898 waiting for results. Deaths numbered to 136 while 52 have recovered, as of last reporting that time (April 3, but updated on the wee hours of April 4 unlike the usual every 4pm).
Hours before Vergeire’s briefing, in an interview on April 3, the Chief Implementer of the National Action Plan (NAP) against COVID-19 Carlito Galvez Jr. said that “Ongoing na po ang mass testing. 16,368 na po ang na-test natin.”
It was, in turn, only a few hours after Galvez said on April 2 that the government will start its “massive testing” on April 14.
DOH said that the “massive testing” Galvez referred to are for persons under investigation (PUIs) and monitoring for possible infection with severe or mild symptoms, as well as health workers, pregnant women and those with preexisting medical conditions, such as cancer and diabetes. These parameters are almost the same as the current protocols of DOH for testing, adding only frontliners and persons under monitoring (PUMs).
Prior to this, the DOH and the Inter-Agency Task Force have repeatedly said that there is no need for mass testing. The statement, which is contrary to the advice of the World Health Organization, would be better understood when the government officials say there is no need because we have no capacity yet to undertake mass testing.
In a press briefing held last March 20, Vergeire said that the government does not see the need for mass testing. Most of those who were tested at this time were those showing sever symptoms of the disease and it can take days for them to retrieve results.
“In other countries, though it has been done like in South Korea, they did mass testing, pero ito po ay mayroon silang… well-capable ang kanilang health systems at capacity for that. Sa ngayon po, hindi pa naman natin nakikitang kailangan nating gawin itong mass testing na ito,” she said.
In the same press briefing, however, the spokesperson added that this would be possible if the country has more resources and capacity for such number of tests.
“Ngunit of course, nariyan po ‘yan sa ating talaan, nasa mapa, nasa radar. Kung sakaling dumating ‘yong panahon na we have enough resources, the government can do it, and if it is imperative for government to do it, gagawin po natin ‘yan kung saka-sakali,” Vergeire added.
The DOH spokesperson also admitted that the news about tests being delayed for days was because of the country’s laboratory capacity.
“Yung mga napapabalita po na may delay, totoo po ‘yun. We are being challenged right now with our testing capacity and laboratory capacity,” she said.
A few days after this press briefing, reports of politicians, their spouses, their families or their entire staff having themselves tested and gotten their results right away surfaced. This was in spite that they were asymptomatic or considered only as PUMs. The DOH denied there was VIP testing and explained that the testing protocol was different when the ‘VIPs’ in question were tested.
