Dizon: Philippines’ testing capacity now at 60K per day

Amid the ongoing surge of cases, testing czar Vince Dizon said the daily average number of COVID-19 tests in the country has already reached 60,000.

In an interview with Super Radyo dzBB, Dizon said the average number of tests in the country was only at 40,000 before the current surge of infections.

“Ngayon po, umabot na tayo ng 60,000 plus a day. Noong mga nakaraang araw mga 64 o 65 thousand na [reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction tests],” the testing czar said.

(Now, the number of tests are already at more than 60,000 a day. In the last few days we've reached 64 to 65 thousand reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction tests.)

Apart from that, Dizon said the government has already deployed antigen test kits to local government units and hospitals within the National Capital Region plus bubble to ramp up the COVID-19 testing in the country.

Earlier, he said the government is planning to target 80,000 to 90,000 COVID-19 tests per day in Metro Manila and nearby provinces — the areas that are experiencing a surge in infections.

To achieve this, he said the government will be adding 20,000 antigen test kits certified by the World Health Organization and the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine along with the RT-PCR test to its RT-PCR tests daily.

Dizon reiterated that the government will be doing risk-based and targeted testing instead of mass testing.

The Department of Health defines “mass testing” as testing all those who have been exposed to a confirmed positive case, not necessarily the entire population.

Similar to DOH’s “mass testing” definition, Dizon said risk-based and targeted testing means testing of persons as recommended by a doctor, persons with symptoms, persons with close contact with a COVID-19 patient, or persons coming from areas with high cases of COVID-19.

The Philippines has so far recorded a total of 904,285 cases of COVID-19 including 183,527 active cases, 705,164 recoveries and 15,594 deaths. — RSJ, GMA News