FREE TEST Vendors at Pritil market inManila get freeswab tests for the coronavirus onWednesday.TheDepartment ofHealth says 3.7 million Filipinos have been tested for the virus that causesCOVID-19.TheWorldHealth Organization says there is hope that a vaccine against the disease may be ready by year-end. —RICHARD A. REYES
MANILA, Philippines — It may be easy to think that the country is already doing well in its fight against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic with millions of tests done, but for Vice President Leni Robredo, the yardstick should be on how many tests are being conducted on the close contacts of COVID-19 positive patients.
Robredo explained on Sunday that other countries who have succeeded in suppressing COVID-19 transmissions are doing 20 tests per positive case — that means that at least 20 contacts of a COVID-19 positive patient are immediately tested to prevent them from spreading the coronavirus.
As of now, Robredo said, quoting a Lancet COVID-19 Commission study, the Philippines is just testing at least eight close contacts of a COVID-19 positive patient.
“Kasi kapag tayo nagrereport, parang absolute numbers, ‘di ba. Kapag pinakinggan mo, more than 1 million, more than 2 million na iyong tests. Pero kapag tiningnan mo iyong Lancet Study, hindi tayo doing well kung iyon iyong batayan,” she said during her weekly radio program at DZXL.
(When we report the data, it seems like they are absolute numbers. If you listen to the number of tests, they say it is more than one million, two million. But if you look at the Lancet Study, we are not doing well because that is not the basis.)
“Dapat iyong tests natin naka-base doon sa kung ilan iyong nagpa-positive. Kapag inaral daw natin iyong mga countries na na-flatten na iyong curve nila […] iyong mga bansa na ito ang tine-test nila no less than 20 for every positive case. Using their formula, noong September, eight lang ‘yong tine-test natin for every positive case,” she added.
(The number of our tests should be based on how much have tested positive. If we study the countries who were able to flatten their curve, these countries test no less than 20 contacts for every positive case. Using their formula, last September, we were only able to test eight close contacts of every positive case.)
The latest numbers from the COVID-19 tracker of the Department of Health (DOH) showed that the country has already done over 4.128 million tests — a considerable jump compared to the early part of the pandemic and the lockdowns when government officials were scrambling for testing kits.
But using Robredo’s formula — which she quotes from the Lancet COVID-19 Commission — by testing at least 20 close contacts of every new COVID-19 positive patient, and considering that the country has over 300,000 cases, the number of tests done should already be over 6.3 million.
These factors can be useful, she said, for local governments in gauging how they are faring with their contact tracing and COVID-19 testings. Robredo noted that the case totals per region will be available in a new website that her office is creating.
With the new website, COVID-19 related information from each local government unit will be simplified using data from the DOH, and applying the standards set by the Lancet COVID-19 Commission on the status of transmissions in a country — high, moderate, and light to no transmissions.
READ: OVP to launch ‘simplified’ website showing COVID-19 status of LGUs
“So ito iyong usefulness noong data drop na ilalagay natin. […] For every LGU ganito iyong positive ko, so dapat ganito iyong tine-test ko. Hindi siya puwedeng kung sino-sino lang. Dapat iyong tine-test talaga depende sa lugar—depende sa positive cases sa lugar,” Robredo said.
(So this is the usefulness of the data drop that we would place. For every local government unit, they can see how many tested positive, so they would have an idea of how many should be tested. But not anyone should not be tested, instead, only those in a specific area, depending on the cases per area.)
Robredo has made several suggestions to the government for a better overall COVID-19 response — from mass testing, contact tracing, to helping health workers, economic programs for affected sectors and families, and other measures that would minimize transmissions.
READ: Robredo cites data showing countries beating COVID-19 while awaiting vaccine
READ: Empower workers, MSMEs to help revive economy – Robredo
READ: Robredo urges gov’t to plan vaccine deployment
All the while, the Office of the Vice President has also been involved in donation drives which were used to purchase personal protective equipment and testing kits, and the provision of free shuttles and dormitories for health workers and frontliners.
READ: Robredo: P61-M OVP funds, donations used to purchase 231K PPEs, testing kits