Robredo pushes for more COVID-19 tests as 30,000 daily ‘are no longer enough’

MANILA, Philippines – Vice President Leni Robredo believes that to maintain the country’s progress in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the government would need to conduct more tests, as the 30,000 coronavirus tests per day “may no longer be sufficient. “.

In an interview with the GMA news program “Quarantined with Howie Severino” on Tuesday, Robredo cited the points the government had been scoring by placing COVID-19 access points, including Metro Manila, in a modified enhanced community quarantine of two weeks (MECQ). .

“I think the MECQ was very helpful and, in fact, last week’s figures were good. But this is not the time to be complacent, ”Robredo said, speaking in part in Filipino. “We are happy because we finally see that there is hope. But this is not the time to be complacent because we saw other countries have no cases for more than 100 days, only to have spikes again. “

“But given the positivity rate, I think we need to increase testing, the 30,000 tests may no longer be sufficient if our goal is to have a positivity rate less than 5 percent, because that is the WHO standard. So we need to increase testing, “he added.

The country’s testing capacity of 30,000 was set last May, but testing only began on July 22. Since then, there have been minor fluctuations, but the highest number of tests in one day was performed on September 10, with 43,679 individual tests.

Robredo pointed out that the small successes mean a lot because they showed that the country was, after all, capable of defeating the pandemic. However, he still emphasized that the country could have prevented many things if the government had been decisive in adopting measures to prevent broadcasts from the beginning.

“This is great because it gives us hope. Because for so long, we seemed desperate from the increasing number of cases every day. August was the worst for us. In fact, last August we had sessions with almost 7,000 [cases],” she said.

“The problem is that we don’t act early. We should have done a lot of things last February and March, but now we are catching up. As for the tests, already in April and May, we set targets of 30,000 tests per day, but we only reached it in July. We saw that it was very helpful to achieve the test objectives because we found that community broadcasts are getting worse, ”he emphasized.

The vice president has been one of the most vocal personalities in suggesting things that the government should improve in its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Already in January, Robredo raised the possibility of banning incoming flights from China, the origin of the coronavirus disease.

Then, during the course of the confinements, Robredo gave a host of suggestions on how to best respond to the health crisis, raising some eyebrows among government officials and supporters.

On one occasion, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said that Robredo’s recommendations were not new and that the government had acted accordingly, prompting the Robredo camp to publish the full text of the suggestions.

Roque also noted how Robredo tended to be pessimistic, viewing the government’s efforts as a glass half empty. Robredo responded by saying that his office was only filling out the half-empty answer.

Robredo admitted that some of her suggestions had been implemented by the government, including proposals for which she was initially condemned.

“They’ve actually done a lot, as if one of my initial suggestions was to refrain from reporting on ‘new’ and ‘old cases’ because it just confuses people. It’s not relevant, so they took it away, ”he said.

“Like the proof. Since March, I have been talking non-stop about testing. But they not only ruled it out, they opposed it. They said that we will not do mass testing because it is not an effective remedy to control transmission. And yet they did, ”he added.

At the moment, the country appears to be heading towards a flattening of the COVID-19 curve, although it still has one of the highest cases in Southeast Asia, with 269,407 people infected as of Tuesday, 207,352 of whom have recovered, while 57,392 are still infected. active cases.

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