As businesses resume, National Action Plan Against COVID-19 Deputy Chief Implementer Vince Dizon on Wednesday underscored the importance of testing for employees, including non-medical frontliners, to keep the economy open.
“We need to be more aggressive in safeguarding the health of all citizens while we keep our economy moving. And testing for employees especially non-medical frontliners, remains crucial to this. Our goal is to save lives and to save our economy,” Dizon said.
The National Task Force (NTF) cited the San Miguel Corporation as a pioneer in the move to open its own COVID-19 laboratory to initially test all of its 70,000 employees.
San Miguel’s testing facility can process up to 4,000 tests per day.
As of July 4, the country now has 75 testing laboratories with a turnaround time of 72 hours. Of the said number, 49 are public labs while 26 are privately-owned, including San Miguel’s laboratory.
“We laud San Miguel and Mr. Ramon Ang for their invaluable contributions to the fight against COVID-19. The government continues to call on everyone’s participation in this whole-of-nation approach—from the local government units to private firms, to have their employees tested and help in the Test, Trace, Treat strategy to prevent the spread of the disease,” said Dizon.
Dizon echoed the call of Chief Implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr. who earlier called for everyone to work together to reduce the transmission of the disease.
Galvez and Dizon said that as the country opens up more, every Filipino must take more responsibility and be very disciplined in observing basic health measures.
They also called on both local governments and private companies to strictly enforce the wearing of masks, frequent hand washing, and physical distancing.