Vice President Leni Robredo on Sunday said the government should ramp up its testing capacity in a targeted, more data-driven manner amid the continuous rise of COVID-19 cases in the country.
“Let’s increase testing but let’s make it more targeted,” she tweeted on Sunday along with a chart her office made citing data from the Department of Health (DOH) dated March 26.
Robredo recommended a minimum number of tests that should be conducted per day per region.
She pointed out that the Philippines’ current 30,000 to 50,000 tests conducted per day might not be sufficient in areas where there are high positivity rates.
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“But if you look at this table, the positivity rates for some regions are so high that the number of tests we are conducting are no longer enough,” she furthered.
Robredo’s chart was based on the DOH’s data on March 26 which showed that the total number of new cases for the day was 6,936 while the absolute total stands at 9,000 with the addition of previous positive cases that DOH have not logged yet.
On March 26, the positivity rate was 17.3 percent beyond the ideal 5 percent recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“WHO standard is positivity rate should be less than 5%. We need to have that as our target” Robredo said adding that they identified regions that have a high positivity rate.
The chart named areas such as Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) with 14.72 percent, the National Capital Region (NCR) with 20.17 percent, SOCCSKSARGEN region with 15.15 percent, Cagayan Valley with 28.94 percent, Central Luzon with 16.86 percent, Region IV-A with 24.47 percent, MIMAROPA with 16.67 percent, and Bicol Region with 12.35 percent.
“Based on this table, in NCR alone, we need about 90,000 tests per day. Here, positivity rate is 20.17%. This means for every 5 tests, 1 turns out positive,” Robredo pointed out
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“While the absolute numbers in Cagayan Valley are small compared to NCR, per capita numbers are high and positivity rate is highest at 28.94 percent. This means that for every 4 being tested, more than one is Covid-positive. We need to conduct a minimum of 3,860 tests per day if we are to target 5 percent positivity rate,” she added.
In line with her recommendation for a targeted approach, the Office of the Vice President (OVP) launched its Swab Cab free mobile swab service project that aims to help local government units to boost their testing capacities.
The Swab Cab project will utilize antigen test kits for community-based surveillance testing to fast-track the detection of COVID-19 individuals.
Robredo said these numbers will adjust depending on the results of the surveillance testing but stressed the need to do it now. (RA)
