MANILA, Philippines — The Quezon City government on Wednesday said the continuous increase in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city is due to its increased testing capacity.
The local government said this as it ramps up its community-based testing in all of its six districts.
“Testing is like driving with headlights on, which is way better than driving in the dark. Through it, we can properly isolate and give care to our patients who tested positive,” Dr. Rolly Cruz of the Quezon City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (QCESU) said.
Quezon City, the worst-hit locality in the Philippines with 1,457 coronavirus patients, recently opened community-based testing centers in Districts 1, 2, and 3.
The District 1 testing center is situated at the Esteban Abada Elementary School while the Batasan National High School is the site of the testing area for District 2. For District 3, the city government assigned the Old Balara Covered Court as a testing site, which would open Wednesday, May 6.
The three centers will operate from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., and aim to conduct around 50 tests per day.
Quezon City also has testing centers in District 4 (Quezon City Experience or QCX), District 5 (SB Park Novaliches), and District 6 (University of the Philippines’ Asian Institute of Tourism along Commonwealth Avenue).
In addition, tests are continuously done by the local government hospitals as well as by QCESU.
In partnership with various laboratories, hospitals, and partners, Cruz said the city expects a total of 140 samples to be analyzed and tested per day.
Meanwhile, Joseph Juico, project manager of the community-based testing, bared that Quezon City is also exploring the establishment of its own Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) laboratory and the beefing up of QCESU’s manpower for contact tracing.
“Hopefully, we can also enter into partnerships with more laboratories to further increase our testing capacity to 300-500 tests per day,” he said.
To date, the city government said it has tested more than 3,000 patients, on pace to meet the target of 10,000 patients this month.