DOH defends risk-based COVID-19 testing following Bloomberg report

The Department of Health (DOH) on Friday stood by the government’s policy of risk-based screening for COVID-19 amid criticism that the country was still not testing enough.

On Wednesday, a Bloomberg report on COVID-19 resilience ranked the country as the worst performer among 53 biggest economies in the world.

In an article accompanying the report, Bloomberg said that the Philippines "faces a perfect storm" of the Delta variant coupled with "inadequate" testing and lockdowns that have disrupted the economy and people’s livelihoods.

“We have always advocated for risk-based testing, based on proper clinical assessment based on symptoms and exposure,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in response to the report.

The government’s risk-based strategy provides that only persons with symptoms, close contacts of a COVID-19 patient, or persons coming from areas with high cases of COVID-19 would be subjected to testing.

“Additionally, with the Alert Levels System, LGUs (local government units) should ramp up active case finding and conduct risk-based testing to lower COVID-19 cases,” Vergeire said.

“Likewise, we continuously remind the public to immediately isolate should symptoms manifest or with known exposure and immediately coordinate with the Barangay Health Emergency Response team to facilitate testing and quarantine.”

On Thursday, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the government was testing around 80,000 individuals a day, but records from the DOH showed that the number of individuals tested for COVID-19 in a day for the month of September ranged from 51,000 to 79,000 a day.

Roque also said testing was just one of the strategies to curb the spread of COVID-19. — DVM, GMA News