Another round of aggressive community testing (ACT) for 1,500 individuals belonging to the vulnerable sectors was conducted on June 11 to 12 at the Melvin Jones grandstand.
City Health Officer Rowena Galpo said those targeted to undergo free reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction tests were groups where recent clustering of Covid-19 cases occurred.
Sanitation Division Chief Charles Carame said targeted industries were government office employees, hotel workers, food handlers, construction workers, gym/spa/wellness centers/barber shop, church clergies/ministers/pastors/staff, drivers, business process outsourcing/customer service relations workers and security guards.
The ACT is a regular program of the city government and the Bases Conversion Development Authority through its subsidiary, the John Hay Management Corporation.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong said the city sustains its aggressive testing program as part of the control measures against Covid-19
“Although testing will cause the number of our cases to increase, we will be able to determine where the infections are coming from and know the situation on the ground. And because we know our true situation, we will also know how to address it, manage the cases and prevent more transmissions,” he said.
Galpo said although the city has a relatively high testing rate which is more than the national rate, its testing capacity is still below the testing requirement.
“We still need to ramp up our testing capacity to be more effective in preventing transmissions,” she said.
To achieve this, the city will enhance its programs on community testing, mandatory testing of close contacts and antigen testing of symptomatic individuals.
As of June 7, the city has conducted a total of 185,541 tests and tested 118,871 individuals representing 31.74 percent of the city’s population. – Aileen P. Refuerzo
