Seventeen or one half of the Senate staff of Senator Richard J. Gordon have been tested positive for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and all are now at different quarantine facilities.
Gordon revealed this via video conferencing in last night’s Senate regular session immediately after Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, himself a COVID-19 infection survivor, delivered a speech that he was tested ‘’negative’’ by the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) through its RT-PCR process yesterday.
This brings to 40 the number of reported viral infections at the 24-member Senate this month.
There are also 45 staff members at the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) infected. Gordon is the PRC chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Zubiri had the confirmatory PRC test after he was earlier tested ‘’positive’’ through the PCR test at the Lung Center whose result was released after he had lunch at the Senate building.
This was after the Senate held its traditional opening of the second regular session of the 18th Congress last Monday.
Gordon has been under self-imposed quarantine at his residence although he and his wife, Kate, and two members of his household were tested negative last July 17.
During a ZOOM interview with Senate reporters just after noon yesterday, Gordon said that, for safety’s sake, his wife left their house.
In his July 17 statement, Gordon said 10 of his ‘’immediate staff’’ were tested positive but did not state how many Senate and PRC employees of the 10 ‘’immediate’’ staffers were affected.
Protocol for recovered patients
Meanwhile, Zubiri urged the Department of Health (DOH) to come up with protocols for testing and dealing with patients who recovered from COVID-19 to avoid confusion over “false positives.”
Zubiri made the appeal after he again tested positive for the coronavirus, only to find out from a confirmatory swab test on Tuesday that he was actually no longer infected with the disease.
“We are more than four months into this pandemic, and we should have perfected or at the very least attained a certain degree of expertise and accuracy in our testing capability,” the senator said in his privilege speech
during their Tuesday plenary session.
Zubiri said he consulted doctors and infectious disease experts and read studies stating that patients who recovered from COVID-19 may still possess remnants of the COVID-19 virus, which are no longer contagious and “merely a trace of the virus.”
He said the DOH should consider these factors in its testing protocols and screening of patients.
“It could not be one-machine- or one-system-fits-all,” he said.
“The DOH should be more prudent in testing and releasing the result of recovered patients. Should they have their tests after a certain period, say two or three months? Are those repetitive tests necessary for recovered patients, if these will certainly turn out to be false-positive?” he asked.
Zubiri also raised its implication to the accuracy of the government’s data on the COVID-19 cases. “If our testing protocols are not accurate or suited to the conditions of patients, whether they are new infections or recovered patients, we may not be presenting a clear picture of the number of COVID cases. It could be higher, or it could even be lower than the current figures, due to false-positive or false-negative cases,” he said.
Aside from this, he also noted the “anxiety and mental anguish” that the false positives cause to the recovered patients, their families, and the people who interacted with them.