Hontiveros presses for COVID-19 mass testing

MANILA,  Philippines —  Opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros on Monday insisted on having mass testing for coronavirus disease 2019  (COVID-19).

“The logic is simple: To defeat the outbreak, we need to determine more cases, isolate them, and respond to their treatment and care,”  Hontiveros said in a statement.

She introduced her proposal as part of her amendment to Senate Bill No. 1413 that would grant President Rodrigo Duterte additional powers to stem the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the country.

The bill is the subject of the special session of the Senate and the  House of Representatives called to address the health crisis.

In the proposed amendment,  Hontiveros said the medical testing and observation of persons under  investigation (PUIs) and persons under monitoring (PUMs) could be expedited through  “upgrading diagnostic capacity and mass testing prioritizing high-risk individuals…”

Among those deemed as high-risk individuals include health workers, the elderly, the immunocompromised, pregnant women and others subject to additional criteria  based on emerging knowledge on COVID-19.”

“Social distancing and the lockdown are not enough to ‘defeat the outbreak,’” Hontiveros  said,   “We need to follow the World Health Organization’s advice for countries to ‘test, test, test.”

“Kung matetest ang lahat ng dapat i-test, kahit yung mga mild o walang sintomas pero high-risk, our health authorities will be able to isolate infected individuals and do contact tracing right away,” she added.

(If all those need to be tested would be tested, even those with mild or no symptoms  but are high-risk, our health authorities would be able to isolate infected individuals and do contact tracing right away)

The senator noted that the current Department of  Health triage only allows those with severe symptoms to get tested.

But mass testing, she said,  “is even more crucial when symptoms are mild, as those with undetectable symptoms remain as carriers of the coronavirus.”

Aside from mass testing, Hontiveros also called for increased protections for medical personnel and frontliners “including but not limited to personal protective equipment and adequate hazard pay.”

“Nagkakasakit na yung mga health workers at mga frontliners natin. Pero kahit sila hindi nate-test dahil sa current triage,”  she lamented.

(Our health workers and frontliners are getting sick already. But even these people could not be tested  because of the current  triage.)

“Mass testing will protect our healthworkers, frontliners, those who are at-risk and eventually save more lives,”  the senator added.