The Philippines now has the biggest Covid-19 testing capacity in the whole of Southeast Asia.
Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) chief and Covid-19 testing czar Vince Dizon said the country’s over 30,000 daily tests is almost double than those from its neighboring countries like Indonesia, Singapore, and even South Korea.
He attributed this to the country’s expanded targeted testing initiative, which now covers more groups, as well as the operation of more testing laboratories.
Since March, Dizon said, the country was able to test 1.7 million people. Over a million of these cases are from Metro Manila.
The increased testing capacity, he added, contributed to the spike of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country.
As of Thursday, the Department of Health was able to register 119,460 confirmed cases. Of these infected individuals 2,150 died and 66,837 recovered from the disease.
The Singapore-based newspaper, the Strait Times, reported on Tuesday that the country was now poised to overtake Indonesia as the “epicenter” of Covid-19 in Southeast Asia.
On Wednesday, Indonesia already registered 116,781cases, while Philippines tallied 115,980 infected cases that day. Indonesia has yet to report its latest Covid-19 cases as of this writing.
Dizon called the Strait Times’s report as “speculative,” stressing the country has a higher daily tests compared to Indonesia.
“We will only learn of the actual extent, or numbers of Covid-19 infections, if we conduct the needed testing and tracing,” Dizon said at the launch of the One Hospital Command (OHC) Center in Makati City on Thursday.
The government is ramping up its testing, treatment, isolation, and treatment initiatives for Covid-19 as it plans to once again relax community restrictions in Metro Manila and its neighboring provinces, even as the move may runs the risk of another spike in the count of infected individuals in the country.
The OHC will ensure Covid-19 patients, particularly those with critical symptoms, will be given medical treatment.