De Lima seeks inquiry on real Covid status

SEN. Leila de Lima has sought an inquiry into the real status of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) mass testing in the country to address issues that impede the progress of government response to the pandemic.

In filing Senate Resolution 425, the detained senator claimed that the government’s lack of effective program for mass testing had prevented the Philippines from containing the virus.

“More than lockdowns and quarantine, it has been proven in many countries that testing is the first step towards controlling the transmission of Covid- 19,” de Lima said.

“The lack of effective mass testing has effectively hampered our ability to control the spread of the virus by denying us leads for contact tracing, which, in turn prevents us from isolating and containing the infected individuals,” she added.

She recalled that World Health

Organization Director- General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the backbone of Covid-19 response is testing, isolation and contact tracing, claiming this as the most effective way to break the chain of transmission, prevent infections and ultimately save lives

De Lima lamented that the country has yet to reach the expected number of tests to be conducted daily, noting that “the initial scope of the mass testing should have been slowly expanding at this point given that there are recent discoveries of numerous asymptomatic Covid-19 cases in the country.”

“According to a report, there exists no national total of how many Filipinos have died of circumstances that resemble Covid- 19, but were never confirmed by lab testing. Even the DoH’s (Department of Health) Covid- 19 tracker only counts the deaths of confirmed cases,” she said.