Govt missed target of 8,000 daily COVID-19 tests, Palace admits

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang on Monday admitted that the government was unable to meet its goal of conducting 8,000 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 tests by the end of April.

Despite this, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque assured that the government is beefing up the country’s testing capacities by establishing more testing centers.

“Unang una po, hindi ko madidispute na medyo hindi natin nakamit yung goal na by April 30, meron nang 8,000 na daily testing ang DOH [Department of Health], nadelay po tayo,” Roque said in an online press briefing.

(First, I can’t dispute that we did not meet the goal that by the end of April 30, the DOH can conduct 8,000 tests daily. We were delayed.)

“One thing that I can assure you is that we’re taking steps to increase our testing capacity,” he added.

Roque said the country has so far 28 testing centers, including the mega swabbing facilities. By putting up more testing facilities, he said this will complement the target of conducting 30,000 tests daily. 

“Combined po, we’re hoping that we will eventually upgrade and improve our testing capacity kasi it is only through testing na malalaman natin kung nasaan ang kalaban(that we’ll know where the enemy is.) ).” Roque said.

Earlier, the National Task Force COVID-19 said the country already has the capacity to perform 12,000 coronavirus tests.

Despite this, the government’s COVID-19 response deputy chief implementer Vince Dizon said only 7,000 tests have been conducted per day citing the need to increase the ability to get the specimen from the public.

As of Sunday, there are 10,794 confirmed COVID-19 cases nationwide with 719 fatalities and 1,924 recoveries.

GSG