Gov’t workers asked to help in swabbing, encoding of COVID-19 patients; 30K tests eyed per day

May 5, 2020

Malacañang said that volunteers from all government agencies will be tapped to assist in the four mega swabbing centers for coronavirus disease being put up.

National Task Force Deputy Chief Implementer and Bases Conversion and Development Authority President Vivencio Dizon, in a virtual press briefing on Tuesday, said the government is eyeing an average of 30,000 COVID-19 tests per day.

"So, right now there's a huge effort initiated by Executive Secretary to tap volunteers from all government agencies to come out and help in the swabbing and encoding and bar coding of our mega swabbing centers," he said on Monday night.

"We are building four today. We started last week and they will all be completed this week," he added.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, in the same virtual press briefing, said the mega swabbing facilities are located in Enderun Colleges in Taguig City, Philippine Arena in Bulacan, Mall of Asia in Pasay City, and Palacio de Maynila in the city of Manila.

Dizon said the government is also ramping up laboratory testing as 56 more laboratories would be put up.

"Our target by May 30 is to have 78 laboratories in the whole country, including Visayas and Mindanao," he said.

Once there are already 78 laboratories, he said the daily tests could increase to 30,000 from the current 5,000 per day.

"That's our goal and we believe that once we activate these labs, we will have the capacity to test 30,000 per day by May 30. And we will do it with the help of the private sector," he said, noting that the biggest laboratory right now is the one being run by the Philippine Red Cross.

Dizon, who was also named as the country's new "test, trace, and treat (3T)" czar, said the immediate goal also of the government in the next few weeks is to swab and test 25,000 overseas Filipino workers who arrived in the country.

Meanwhile, Roque said the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases has approved the creation of the IATF Screening and Validation Committee to be composed of the undersecretaries of the different government agencies.

The committee is mandated to process the appeal or validation of the decision of the places, which will continue under the enhanced community quarantine or to downgrade to general community quarantine.

He also said  there were recommendations by the Department of Transportation to look for ways on how to support the transportation sector, such as through fuel subsidy, loan without interest, and deferment of payment to financing institution's amortizations without interest.

The spokesman said the recommendations are still being studied. Celerina Monte/DMS