Aminado ang pamahalaan na kulang ang ginagawa ng bansa pagdating sa testing ng mga posibleng COVID-19 patient.
Ayon kay National Task Force (NTF) Deputy Chief Implementer at Testing Czar Vince Dizon, hindi pa sapat ang nasa 70,000 na average na bilang ng test na ginagawa sa isang araw.
Pero hindi aniya sila maaaring mag-test basta-basta dahil kailangan pa rin nilang sundin ang payo ng mga eksperto at guidelines mula sa Department of Health (DOH).
“I don’t think it’s enough to be honest ‘no. But what we have to understand is we always follow the advice of our experts that we cannot just test shotgun ‘no, meaning magti-test na lang tayo nang walang basis. It needs to be risk-based, it needs to be based on the guidelines that have been approved by our experts and by the DOH which tells us that we test symptomatics, we test contacts, we test contacts of symptomatic and we test in areas of high risk.” pahayag ni Dizon
Giit ni Dizon, napakadaling sabihin na mag-test tayo ng isang daang libo kada araw o 150,000 gaya ng lumabas na white paper na sinasabi kailangang i-test ang 10% ng populasyon ng bansa kada araw.
“Kung magti-test po tayo halimbawa iyong sinabi ng white paper dati na 10% of the population every day. 10% of 100 million na lang is 10 million Filipinos every day, 2,000 times 10 million, iyan po ay P20 billion kada araw. At this rate already. We are already spending P160 million a day both from the pockets of our citizens who are paying for the test and also from PhilHealth who is paying for the test of those that are qualified to be tested, napakalaking pondo po nito.” dagdag pa ni Dizon
Tiniyak naman ni Dizon na ipagpapatuloy pa rin nila ang estratehiya sa testing kung saan naka-focus sa mga may sintomas, mga close contact ng COVID positive, close contact ng may sintomas, at mga taong naninirahan sa mga lugar na high-risk sa virus.
