Covid tests intensified as quarantine eases
THE Philippines transitions to a more relaxed quarantine today, Saturday, as it tries to slowly revive the economy that has been battered by the two-month lockdown forced by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic. Metro Manila, the province of Laguna and Cebu City — the remaining Covid-19 highrisk areas — were placed under the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) in which restrictions have been eased to allow the reopening of select businesses and the freer movement of people. The MECQ will last until the end of the month.
As the government phases in the reinvigoration of the economy, it also stepped up testing for the coronavirus.
On Friday, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said people with mild symptoms and those who did not have symptoms but were exposed to a carrier would be tested.
She added that there was an “adequate” number of test kits to expand the testing and include a bigger part of the population.
“We initially prioritized at the outset of our response the severe and critical cases and the vulnerable population, considering our resources,” said Vergeire in a text message.
The Department of Health (DoH) has surpassed its daily testing goal after conducting 9,465 tests on May 13.
It achieved its goal of testing 8,000 patients on Sunday, 10 days after its initial deadline, April 30.
The country has conducted a total of 191,963 confirmatory, reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction tests at its 30 laboratories while 105 others are under application.
The DoH had 893,158 remaining tests kits, which are sufficient, but there could be a shortage of other laboratory supplies, Vergeire said.
“Testing kits are sufficient, [but] the other lab supplies are critical at this point due to shortages in both local and international markets,” she added.
As of Friday, there were 123 patients who recovered from Covid-19, bringing the total to 2,460.
The steady rate of recoveries is attributed to the Health department’s new directive of adding patients who have recovered at home to the recovery count.
Vergeire has said the average time for recovery is now at 15 days.
The number of Covid cases stood at 12,091 after 215 cases were added Friday.
The Philippines has not yet breached its highest daily increase — 538 cases on March 31 — despite the improved testing capacity, an indication that the coronavirus curve was flattening, experts from the DoH have pointed out.
Metro Manila still has the highest number of Covid carriers at 67 percent.
Central Visayas, which recently had surge of cases, only reported two cases or 1 percent of total cases Friday.
The death count was 806 after 16 new deaths were reported Friday.
As businesses started to reopen, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman and Albay Rep. Joey Salceda asked the government to prepare for thousands of new Covid cases.
Based on the impact assessment of Salceda’s team, the changes in quarantine regime could lead to 2,500 new cases from May 16 to May 30, as an estimated 14.6 million individuals resume work and “will result in acrossthe-board increases in mobility.”
“Under the new regime, some 14.6 million workers will be allowed to go to work on-site, on top of the 27.4 million currently allowed to work. This would result in some 34.1 million being allowed to work, with only some 700,000 workers still not allowed to go to work on-site,” Salceda said.
He urged the government to focus on reducing the number of projected new cases through aggressive mass testing of 40,000 per day and contact tracing.
“While growth rate in cases is likely to be higher in low-risk areas, they are starting from a low base of active cases and possible vectors, have lower population density, and will thus yield fewer number of new individual cases. While with a lower likely growth rate, the high-risk areas will contribute as much as 78.6 percent of new cases within the next 14 days after the new quarantine regimes are implemented,” Salceda said.
He estimated job losses from the pandemic at 1.09 million, which includes about 960,000 seasonal jobs and some 126,000 permanent jobs.
Majority of residents of Metro Manila support the continuous implementation of safety protocols even after the enhanced community quarantine is lifted, a survey has found.
An online survey conducted by PUBLiCUS Asia Inc. from May 5 to May 8 showed that 90.2 percent of 1,000 respondents from the National Capital Region wanted to continue the mandatory wearing of face masks in public places. They also supported physical distancing (85 percent), ban on mass gatherings (79.3 percent), and curfew hours (76.4 percent).
“Strong support for continuing strict ECQ policies in the post-ECQ era suggests that public health and safety are still of paramount concern among our panelists, even as we start to test the waters of the New Normal,” Aureli Sinsuat, PUBLiCUS Executive Director and spokesman, said.
The results were part of the NCR Covid-19 Online Panel Survey, an independent noncommissioned tracking survey designed by PUBLiCUS and VOX Opinion Research in partnership with Kantar, a leading firm in the global data industry.
All courts in quarantine areas will be open only for urgent matters, and with a skeleton staff, according to the Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Diodado Peralta on Friday issued a circular setting the guideline on how the courts shall operate until May 31.
Inquiries on cases and transactions, including requests for documents and services, will initially be coursed and acted upon only through the hotline numbers, email addresses and/ or Facebook accounts of the courts, as posted on the Supreme Court website.
No walk- in requests will be entertained.
The courts in the quarantine areas will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday to Friday, while on Saturday courts will remain suspended until May 30.
All the courts in the areas under MECQ shall remain physically closed to all court users until 31 May 2020, and may be initially reached only through their respective hotline numbers, email addresses and/or Facebook accounts as posted on the website of the Supreme Court.