Robredo urges gov’t to test more, aim for 1M COVID-19 jabs per day

Vice President Leni Robredo on Tuesday urged the government to ramp up its testing and aim for 1 million COVID-19 vaccinations per day amid the emergence of the Delta coronavirus variant in the country.

In an interview on CNN Philippines, Robredo reiterated the need to detect more COVID-19 cases, noting the high transmission rate of the Delta variant.

She said the government’s testing is still around 50,000 despite the 21% positivity rate in the country.

“So gustong sabihin, we should really test more kasi the international standard is positivity rate should be less than 5%. So if it’s 21%, we conducted 50,000 tests. Iyon iyong denominator natin sa pagkuwenta ng positivity rate. Gusto ko sabihin, hindi tayo nagte-test enough,” she reiterated.

(What we want to reiterate is we should really test more because the international standard is the positivity rate should be less than 5%. So if it’s 21%, we conducted 50,000 tests, that is the denominator in computing for the positivity rate, then we are not testing enough.)

‘Worst thing’ to happen

Robredo said the “worst thing” that can happen is when the undetected Delta variant carriers roam around and infect more people.

She likewise reiterated that intensified COVID-19 testing should come with a streamlined and strengthened contract tracing system.

The Vice President lamented that the country is dealing with the pandemic for more than a year now, yet there’s still no central database for the main contact tracing application of the government.

“Para sa akin, dapat isa lang. The government has already mandated StaySafe as the contact tracing app we should all use. Pero dahil very late na ito minandate, nagkaniya-kaniya na iyong mga LGUs, and there is not enough effort to streamline all the existing ones to have just one database,” she said.

(There should be only one contact tracing application. The government has already mandated StaySafe as the contact tracing app we should all use but because it came very late, the LGUs have established their own systems and there is no enough effort to streamline all the existing ones to have just one database.)

Hiring more contact tracers won’t also help the government’s COVID-19 response if there is no central database in place, she added.

While Robredo welcomed the 500,000 COVID-19 jabs per day, she prodded the government to aim for one million vaccinations daily to curb the spread of the virus in the country.

“We’re doing something like 500,000 jabs a day already in the country and that’s big. Several months ago, parang very welcome na nakarating tayo sa ganitong numbers a day. But with Delta variant it’s not enough anymore,” she said.

Last week, Robredo said 750,000 people should be vaccinated against COVID-19 on a daily basis to curb COVID-19 transmission during the Metro Manila lockdown scheduled from August 6 to 20.

“We should aim more. We should aim for a higher number. Dapat nagmi-million na tayo a day, if only masabayan natin or maunahan natin iyong pagkalat ng Delta variant,” she added.

(We should hit around one million a day so that we can prevent the transmission of the Delta variant.)

Apart from these, Robredo highlighted the importance of “beefing up” and funding the hospital facilities and the healthcare personnel.

She lamented that the government did not “take advantage” of the time that it can improve the hospitals and increase the compensation of the healthcare workers.

As of August 3, 9.8 million Filipinos have already been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

This represents only 8.85% of the total Philippine population, way behind the target of vaccinating 70% of the 109 million Filipinos by the end of the year to achieve herd immunity.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Department of Health has reported 8,560 fresh COVID-19 cases, bringing the total tally to 1,676,156. — RSJ, GMA News