Baguio mayor to DOH: Tell real situation on COVID testing

CITY HALL BEAT

Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY -- Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong asked the Dept. of Health Tuesday to tell the real situation on the country’s testing status so as not to keep local governments units in the dark waiting for the promised test kits.

In a talk with the local media, the mayor expressed disappointment with the slow development of the department’s risk-based mass testing program which was supposed to give the country headway in its goal to flatten the curve. 

              “I hope that once and for all the DOH will tell us the real situation rather than keep on promising us that we have numerous test kits arriving.  Tell us the real score on our testing capacity and capability so that we at the local government will know what to do and plan it out.  Do we still have to wait or do we just act on our own,” the mayor said.

The mayor said that pending response from the national agency, the city chose to be proactive and had started to work out the purchase of its own test kits.

The mayor said that aside from the 8,100 kits received before, the testing laboratory at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center got only 3,000 last May 1 and because of the numerous backlogs the new deliveries were quickly expended.  

He said that at present there are still 1,500 sample awaiting tests at the laboratory from the Northern Luzon area, around 350 of which are from the city.

“Baguio has had no new cases for the past days but if you ask me if this is the true situation, I tell you it’s not.  We have around 350 waiting for tests and we cannot test them because we don’t have the kits,” the mayor said.

He said Northern Luzon has a population of about 10.5 million and with the 8,100 kits received before, only .07 percent had been tested.

City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit head Dr. Donnabel Panes reported that in Baguio, a total of 2,200 were tested as of May 5 for a testing rate based on total population of .62 percent.

However she said the better determinant if a locality is testing enough is not the testing rate but the positivity rate which is computed by dividing the total number of positive cases over the total number of tests.

               Panes said the standard is that an area should have a positivity rate of 3-10 percent to say that it is testing enough people and therefore showing the true picture on the virus infection in the area.   

 As of May 7, with the city’s total case of 30 divided by the 2,447 total of tests conducted, the city’s case positivity rate is a poor .012 percent.

A University of the Philippines study identified testing along with effective contact tracing system, adequate health facilities and a declining trend as basis for the downgrading of the quarantine status.

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City Mayor’s Office Executive Asst. V and Management Information and Technical Division overseer Philip Puzon explained the rudiments of the city’s electronic system of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) tracking or the EndCov-19 online system.

In a walk-through with the local media, Puzon said it is a combination of systems which have the following functions:

*Captures and presents all types of geographical data, overlays affected areas and visualizes data to reveal patterns and trends of the confirmed cases and its possible spread of infection; 

*Provides different views on how one patient could infect or transfer the virus to others by looking into their daily activities; and shows gaps and creates opportunities to properly track down close contacts of the patient through the timeline.

The COVID tracker can be accessed at endcov19.baguio.gov.ph.

City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit Head Dr. Donnabel Panes said the system guides them in determining the possible source of infection and who might have been infected.

It helps determine contacts the patients might have infected and therefore who will be subjected to tests and to quarantine or medical interventions.

In the absence of tests, this is indispensable as contacts are immediately identified and those with symptoms are immediately isolated and infection is prevented even without the benefit of testing, Panes said.

City Health Officer Dr. Rowena Galpo said the city has 16 contact tracing teams composed of City Health Services Office staff, members of the Barangay Health Emergency Teams and police investigators who supplement with their cognitive interviewing skills in tracking down contacts of the new patients.

Apart from setting up of the e-system and the beefing up of the teams with police investigative skills, Mayor Benjamin Magalong also adopted unconventional approaches to contact tracing like the conduct of tracking activities before laboratory confirmation of cases and disclosure of identities of the patients.