By Chito Chavez The Quezon City government on Tuesday has linked deals with the Chinese General Hospital and the Philippine Genome Center that will expedite the processing and release of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) test results as the city has undertaken an intensified community-based testing process. “As we increase our testing capacity, we need more laboratories that will process the specimen and speed up the identification of positive COVID-19 cases in our city,” said Dr. Rolly Cruz, head of the Quezon City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (QCESU) of the City Health Department. Cruz noted that the city government aims to conduct “10,000 or more tests by the end of the month." Under the agreement, Cruz said “the Chinese General Hospital and Medical Center will accept and process 50 tests per day, with a turnaround time of two to three days." Meanwhile, the Philippine Genome Center, which can also process swab tests gathered from the community-based testing centers, recently received 2,000 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test kits donated to the Quezon City government by San Miguel Corporation (SMC) and 13,000 rapid testing kits from Bloomberg, Ayala Corp., and other donors led by Project Ark. “The rapid testing serves as a guide for city health officials. Anybody can do 10,000 tests, including us, but at the end of the day, we still rely on PCR tests, which is considered the gold standard worldwide,” Cruz said. He noted that the intensified and timely testing has contributed immensely to the city’s recovery rate of 38.81 percent as of May 18, based from the validated cases of the Quezon City Health Department (QCHD). “Nakikita na natin agad iyong mga positive or suspect cases (We can easily identify those positive or suspected cases), then we isolate and treat them immediately. Once they are doing better, they undergo further testing to make sure that they are COVID-19 free,” Cruz explained. The QC government has earlier entered into partnerships with St. Luke’s Medical Center-Quezon City, Philippine Genome Center, Singapore Diagnostics, and Philippine Red Cross for the processing of PCR tests.