Roque says ‘not true’ Philippines has more COVID-19 cases than Indonesia

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque on Friday dismissed reports that the Philippines is Southeast Asia’s new COVID-19 hotspot after overtaking Indonesia as the country with the highest number of cases in the region.

The Philippines announced 3,561 new cases on Thursday, raising the total to 119,460 while Indonesia reported  1,882 new cases for a total of 118,753.

But Roque said the Philippines had already conducted tests covering 1.5% (1.64 million) of its population of 110 million while Indonesia’s COVID-19 tests reached only 0.34% (908,000) of its population of 273 million.

Roque added the rising number of cases in the Philippines can be attributed to the aggressive testing and tracing efforts of the government.

“Dahil mas maigting ang ating pagti-test, hindi po totoo na mas maraming kaso tayo kaysa sa Indonesia,” he said in a televised briefing.

“Hindi lang nalalaman ng mga Indonesian kung sinu-sino iyong mga umiikot na mayroon na pong sakit; at least tayo po, alam natin kung sino na po sila.”

Asked for the basis for his claim that the Philippines has less cases than Indonesia, Roque said: “Hindi ko po alam how to answer that.”

“Basta ang malinaw lang po sa akin, ang Indonesia po with more or less the same cases as us has 1/3 of the actual testing that we have conducted on our people. Mas marami lang tayong kaso na nalalaman na dito sa Pilipinas dahil nga po three times ang ating testing more compared to the testing done by Indonesia.”

Roque earlier said countries across the globe have seen a spike in COVID-19 infections, citing a report by the Nikkei Asian Review on August 2 that 126 countries and regions or about 70% of the globe recorded an increase in newly reported cases.

He also said the surge in cases around the world could be caused by a more infectious strain of coronavirus.—AOL, GMA News