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The Department of Health (DOH) on Monday urged laboratories to remain open in the middle of the Christmas season so that the government can count an exact number of COVID-19 cases in the country.
The Undersecretary of Health, María Rosario Vergeire, made the call as DOH records have shown that the number of people getting tested per day dropped to 14,196 on December 25, Christmas Day.
The number of people screened for COVID-19 fell further to 13,314 and 11,510 on December 26 and 27, respectively.
“There was really minimal submission [on the part of the laboratories] and there were patients who preferred not to go to the labs at Christmas time. There are also some disease reporting units, like the local government units where we get the sample, that were closed. It affected the number of cases in the last two days, so we are trying to make sure and we are already advising our labs to remain open to continue processing COVID-19 samples, ”Vergeire said in an interview with the ANC.
Vergeire, however, said it is too early to say whether the temporary closure of the labs during the Christmas holidays is sure to result in an increase in COVID-19 cases.
“It has reached more than 800 [new COVID-19] cases due to minimum presentation of specimens, but we are seeing if the number would jump due to the delay or stop of operations or is it because these are real [increase in] cases already from our partner institutions have predicted that there will be an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases for January, “he said.
“We are beginning to analyze the figures to better advise the public,” Vergeire added.
The Philippines has recorded 469,886 COVID-19 cases as of Sunday. Of this number, 438,678 recovered and 9,109 died.
The number of active COVID-19 cases is 22,099.
However, the new variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 first detected in the UK, has prompted some countries to reimpose travel bans, if not restrictions, on international flights, including the Philippines.
However, such a variant of the coronavirus has yet to be seen in the Philippines according to evaluation of samples by the Philippine Genome Center, the Tropical Medicine Research Institute and the UP National Institute of Health as of October, Vergeire said.
These government agencies are still evaluating specimens taken in November and December to determine if a new variant has already infiltrated the country, he added. —KG, GMA News
