Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship and Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion on Tuesday stressed the importance of mass testing as a way to keep the health situation under control and accelerate economic recovery.
“Test, test, test, and isolate are the only way to save the jobs and livelihoods of our Filipino people. To date, Project ARK has tested 107,782 individuals, with private companies carrying out 66,617 tests and LGU (local government unit) partners finishing 41,665 tests. We have to test millions of people. That’s the only way to create visibility. The revelation here is, early on there was a debate to test only symptomatic and not asymptomatic using rapid test kits since RT-PCR capacity was not enough. The results from the private sector showed that if we did not test the asymptomatic, then this could have escalated to a worse situation,” Concepcion said during the Balik-Kabuhayan webinar held on Tuesday with health experts, government officials and businessmen.
“But clearly, the initial data from the first batch of results from the private sector and LGUs showed that 94.7% of the asymptomatic individuals tested were negative, 2.2% were IgG positive, 0.1% were IgM positive, and the other 1.4% tested IgG/IgM positive. This only proves that regular testing is a must,” he added.
“As we open more of our economy, we need to create more visibility and come up with a defense strategy to co-exist with the virus. We have to maintain our GCQ status and eventually move to MGCQ,” Concepcion shared.
Concepcion said: “We should prevent from going back to locking down the entire Luzon or GMA (Greater Manila Area) unless the level of infection goes sky high.”
“At this point, we have to prevent from going back,” he stressed, adding the “granular approach” is the pathway being undertaken where a barangay or a small locality is placed under lockdown when there is a surge in infection.
“We should not go back to, unless (there is) sky-high infection. Currently we are still in control of the infection,” he added.
Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon M. Lopez also said it would be hard to think of going back to hard lockdown because many companies have lost earnings and many jobs and livelihoods disappeared. He stressed that going back to the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) would be difficult because it would pressure on the government as more people would rely on Social Amelioration Program.
“We learned that the virus will be here to stay, we really just have to learn to manage and live with it. We need to strictly implement controls so we can reopen the economy and yet we can maintain safety,” he added.
Lopez said that 95 percent now of businesses have opened already and only 5 percent or those under Category 4 (cinemas, convergence places, concerts) have remained closed. Even dine-in restaurants, barbershops and salons will already be allowed up to 50 percent in GCQ areas 16 and 75 percent capacities in modified GCQ areas.
Rep. Joey Salceda, one of the panelists, shared key takeaways on how to defeat the disease and stated that confidence is everything, “Focus on secular, keep the powder dry versus opportunity for quick recovery, build structural reforms, and seize lowlying fruits.”
He labelled the country’s prolonged lockdown as “OA” (over acting), pointing out that the Philippines has the record of having the longest COVID-19 lockdown all over the world.
Pooled testing
Meanwhile, Iloilo 1st District Rep. Janette Garin, ARK-PCR Private Sector
Chief Implementer, said the private sector-led Project ARK is set to implement its pooled reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing among the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), workers in construction, and in the business process out-sourcing (BPO) sectors by end of July.
During the GoNegosyo-initiated "Balik Kabuhayan" webinar, the former secretary of the Department of Health (DOH) said that the Project ARK PCR initiative has been successful in reducing the cost of PCR testing to a range of from 1,500 to 2,000 pesos per test.
"However there is a need for futher reduction to around P350 to P375 and the target for this implementation is end of July via pooled testing mechanism," Garin said.
She explained that they would be implementing the initiative for the return to work program and the specific populations and local government units (LGUs) in coordination with the selected foundations.
"We cannot speak in behalf of the DOH but I am very sure they will be supportive and they will fast track the approval and cascading among government hospitals," Garin said.
She said the initial targets of application for pooled testing are the OFWs, the BPOs, supermarkets, and construction workers.
She noted the areas that will be covered by the pooled PCR testing are Makati, Mandaluying, Cebu, and Zamboanga.
She said the House of Representatives will also be part of the PCR testing initiative.
"A baseline PCR testing is recommended among the vulnerable workplaces to update everybody," Garin said.
"A retest is recommended once an employee displays symptoms, but a regular testing on a monthly basis will be quite expensive and it will be taxing on the part of our laboratories. This will also allow targeted and selective quarantine measures in the workplace," she explained.
Garin said the intention of the pooled PCR testing is "to allow us to balance public health and economy."
"We cannot afford a second lockdown and reducing the workload on our laboratories' staff is of paramount importance at this point in time. It will also give LGUs and businesses a better and clearer direction and will allow us, most importantly, to sustain the gains of initial lockdown," she said.
READ MORE: Private sector to do PCR testing by end-July
In the same webinar, Philippine-American Academy of Science and Engineering (PAASE) President Gisela Concepción shared bulletin points anchored on three major topics: containment and mitigation; triage and treatment; and mass testing and tracking, as a way to guide businesses, specifically MSMEs.
Dr. Raymund Lo, head of Philippine Children’s Medical Center COVID-19 Testing, shared progress on an ongoing study to significantly increase the country’s testing capacity that could screen even asymptomatic individuals. He explained they are currently in the first phase of the study which will determine which sample pool of 5, 10, 20 is sensitive enough.
“As soon as the results are available we can roll out to other laboratories to dramatically increase capacity,” he said.
“It can definitely be a game-changer because it will lower costs, speed in reporting and ability to test possibly ten times or more the current capacity of our labs.”
Filinvest Development Corp. CEO Josephine Gotianun-Yap pledged support for the pooled testing study and shared how the company is protecting its employees, customers, business partners, and community in addition to helping government efforts to fight the virus.
“When Project ARK started in April, 2020, we had virtually none RT-PCR testing. Two thousand a day is what we have. Many people would take their test and they would die before they got their result. That is why the rapid antibody testing was the practical thing to do and we just made sure that they were reliable as possible,” ARK Medical Team Lead Dra. Minguita Padilla emphasized.
“We still don’t have all the data but we will report it as soon as possible because as Gisela said, this is very important data and we did find a lot of infectious IgMs in the community.”
Padilla also stressed that lockdown, for now, is not necessary as it will do more harm, “The consequence of the lockdown can be even more serious than the consequence of COVID. Because what we saw was that many people are dying from non-COVID diseases. The only way to do this is we go about our lives, respect the virus, be mindful of the virus and we follow the three steps: wash your hands with soap and water, keep your distance, and wear your masks, and keep praying.”
“When a workplace becomes infected or exposed, operations have to be suspended. This means loss of income, difficult life, small businesses will close down. When health meets the economy, when testing fills the gap in making social distancing, hygiene practices, and other new normal behaviors more effective, we can co-exist with COVID,” Garin added.
The webinar, moderated by broadcast journalist Karen Davila, explored effective defense strategies against the virus and touched on the collaboration of public and business sectors in the game-changing mission of making testing affordable and accessible through pooled testing.
Among the thousands of viewers on Facebook and the hundreds of attendees in Zoom were ARK Project Lead Josephine Romero, DOST Secretary Fortunato de la Peña, Singapore Ambassador Gerard Ho, members of the diplomatic corps, business leaders, private companies, business organizations/chambers, and representatives from ARK-PCR
partner companies and hospitals.