Bayan, Akbayan to Dizon: Stop confusing public about mass testing

Two progressive groups slammed National Task Force against COVID-19 deputy chief implementer and testing czar Vince Dizon after he rejected calls to conduct mass testing amid COVID-19 surge in the country.

Akbayan spokesperson RJ Naguit and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) secretary general Renato Reyes on Tuesday issued separate statements, slamming Dizon for “gross incompetence” and “confusing the public” about mass testing.  

"It is only in the Philippines that we have a testing czar who rejects mass testing. How absurd!" Naguit, a physician, said in a statement.

He explained that the objective of mass testing is to conduct many tests as possible to detect infected people — those with and without symptoms— and isolate them immediately.

"This has been long established since the start of the pandemic, yet this administration has refused to learn. The [World Health Organization] has urged countless times to conduct mass testing to curb the rise in cases, but our testing capacity remains below 40,000 tests per day. This is clearly not enough," Naguit said.

The Akbayan spokesperson urged the government not to “repeat the same mistakes” of the initial pandemic response of the Philippines.

“If this administration continues to fool us by forcing on us a twisted definition of mass testing and insisting they are unable to test more people, the fault lies squarely on their incompetence," Naguit said.

"We warn Mr. Dizon to stop testing the public's patience. History does not look kindly upon incompetent czars," he added.

Reyes called for Dizon’s resignation or removal as testing czar for “cherry-picking” the testing data of the Philippines and “confusing the public” about the definition of mass testing.

“Nobody suggested we test the entire population. Experts, however, have been calling on government to ramp up testing of exposed persons and/or persons with symptoms as daily positivity remains very high,” he said.

“We should be testing more than [120,000] people every day, given the rising number of positive cases. We did not say test the entire population,” Reyes argued.

Reyes said the government is only testing on an average of 52,000 daily from March 20 to April 2.

He said this is still not sufficient as the daily positivity rate is already at 24% which means one out of four are testing positive.

This may also indicate that there could be more COVID-19-positive patients but are not being tested.

“To bring down the positivity rate, we need to test more people. It is necessary to determine the extent of the infections,” he pointed out.

“Nobody said testing was the ultimate solution. But everybody agrees it is the first step in successfully containing the virus,” he added.

Moreover, Reyes claimed that the testing output of the Philippines “stagnated” for six months under Dizon’s leadership.

“Instead of confusing the public about what mass testing is, Dizon should quit. He has not been able to do his job and is now shamelessly trying to cover up government’s failures by raising non-existent debates and giving us cherry-picked figures,” Reyes ended his statement.

In a Palace briefing Tuesday, Dizon rejected the renewed calls for mass testing and argued that government should not test the entire Philippine population.

He insisted that the government should follow medical journals and statements from health experts to use risk-based and targeted testing strategy than testing the entire 110 million Filipinos.

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.

“Ang mass testing po ay hindi nirerekomenda [mass testing is not recommended],” Dizon said.

“‘Di pwedeng gamiting testing lang para ma-solusyunan ang COVID-19 [Testing is not the only solution to the pandemic]. We cannot test our way out of this pandemic,” he added.

Last week, Senator Risa Hontiveros, representing Akbayan in the Senate, called on the NTF to establish an official mass testing system as part of its COVID-19 response.—Hana Bordey/LDF, GMA News