Cebu City gov’t eyes random COVID-19 testing in establishments

Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella | PIO Photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City government plans to conduct random testing in the workplaces amid reports that the community transmission has shifted to the establishments.

Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella said in a phone interview on Friday, August 21, 2020, that random swab tests would be done to determine if a certain establishment had a worker infected with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Labella said that this would be a good step to know if there would be a possible community transmission in a workplace.

The tests will still run through the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test and will be a good indicator of workplace transmission.

Read: DOH urges businesses to conduct random rapid tests for workers

“The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) did not require the establishments to test their employees before going to work. Maybe, we can address that if we do random testing. We can do that in our city,” said the mayor.

Labella also said that Cebu City, being the region’s center of commerce, had been home to at least 80,000 business establishments, and some of these had already begun to open at limited capacity with the city under general community quarantine (GCQ).

It was only natural that the community transmission will shift to the workplaces, and this is why the establishments must be closely monitored.

“If there is a positive case, we have to immediately and intensively do contact tracing and apply the granular lockdown system for the establishments,” he said.

The random testing would be an additional measure for early detection, but the mayor also said this would only be temporary.

Read: Project Ark eyes pooled testing to lower cost of virus detection

Cebu City is playing host to the pilot project of pooled testing by Go Negosyo that is also being piloted in Makati City.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the pooled swab testing means combining respiratory samples from several people and conducting one polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test on the combined pool of samples to detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Pooling allows laboratories to test more samples with fewer testing materials. It could be useful in scenarios like returning groups of workers to the workplace.

The pooling will help cut the cost of the swab test, which can cost an individual up to P3,000. With a pooled test, the cost will go down to almost P400 per individual in a pooled sample.

Mayor Labella said he was expecting business to avail of the pool testing once the project would be given a go signal.

For now, he said the random testing might be good for the establishments, and the city would study how to implement this.