A public policy thinktank on Monday, August 9 called on Malacañang to consider a revamp of the leadership of the National Task Force on COVID-19 for its failure to expand the country’s testing capability that is a big factor in in the new upsurge in cases.

The rise in COVID-19 cases has prompted government to impose anew strict Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) in many areas in the country, including the National Capital Region, with Infrawatch PH blaming weak COVID-19 testing capacity among the culprits.

Former Kabataan Partylist Rep. Terry Ridon, Infrawatch PH convenor, said the NTF on COVID-19 clearly bungled the expansion of the testing capability of the country.

Under the NTF set up, the task of improving vaccine capacity falls on the shoulders of testing czar Vince Dizon.

Ridon cited reports that Dizon ‘last March vowed to increase the daily testing capacity of the country from 52,000 to 90,000.

“Mr. President, there is no going around this. Your men failed to expand testing in the last five months,” said Ridon, former chief of the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor.

“We have reached this point today because government has failed its March commitment to raise our daily testing capacity to 90,000 tests per day. With the new ECQ, our coffers will be depleted further. This is money that could have been better spent for vaccine procurement,” explained Ridon.

The former lawmaker stressed that expanding daily capacity to at least double the 52,000 could have averted the rise in COVID-19 cases in the country.

“The current positivity rate of 20.3% is proof positive of government’s failure to focus on testing as a major pillar of the country’s coronavirus response. Nothing substantial has been done to expand testing and comply with its self-imposed commitment,” lamented Ridon.

According to Ridon the World Health Organization recommends a positivity rate of below 10 percent.

“In the last five months, our positivity rate has not gone below 10-percent. With government’s failure to expand testing, we are unable to accelerate the detection of positive cases despite the higher virulence of the Delta variant,” he said.

Records indicate that the current level of testing is pegged at around 51,000 tests per day which was reached as early as the end of March.

Ridon noted that since March, there has been no progress in the conduct of more tests, saying that “it has plateaued in the last five months.”

“Breaching 20-percent positivity rate betrays government’s failure to implement the infrastructure needed to confront severe surges such as current one engulfing the world,” the Infrawatch PH convenor said.