The COVID-19 testing controversy was a controversy in the Philippines involving several government officials who were reported in media to have been tested for coronavirus disease 2019 in the first months of the pandemic in the country. This violated the triage algorithm used by the Department of Health, which said that asymptomatic patients should not be tested, and should instead undergo a 14-day home quarantine. By March 24, 2020, the Philippines had only tested 1,793 people due to a lack of testing kits. In some instances, the controversy involved family or staff members of these government officials, who had reportedly also gotten testing in violation of the algorithm. Public officials receiving quick results on their tests was perceived to be tantamount to receiving priority treatment as numerous people considered as actual patients under investigation – many of whom were frontliners – were dying before their test results were out.
Background
Scarcity of laboratories and test kits
The Philippine government did not have the capacity to test for the SARS-CoV-2 virus until January 30, 2020, when the government-run Research Institute for Tropical Medicine was finally able to run confirmatory tests. Until that date, samples from suspected COVID-19 cases had to be sent to Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory in Melbourne, Australia for testing. However, there were still very few testing kits in the Philippines, and the RITM was still the only laboratory that had the ability to process test results. By March 9, 2020, only 200 to 250 tests could be processed per day. By March 23, 2020 the number had gone up to almost 1000 a day, as new laboratories gained the capacity to process test results and various entities donated about 100,000 test kits to the RITM. But the Philippines' overall capacity to do COVID-19 testing was still very limited given the national spread of the disease. On April 14, 2020, the Philippines' national government began "progressive mass testing" for COVID-19 after it received "tens of thousands of testing kits" from various donor countries, and SARS-COV-2 test kits produced by the University of the Philippines' Philippine Genome Center became available. To process these tests, the DOH reported that "dozens of testing laboratories" would come online within the month.
As soon as the government gained the ability to conduct COVID-19 tests locally, they developed a triage algorithm which would serve as a "decision tool." This would determine which patients would be allowed to use the few available test kits, and the processing time of the few Philippine laboratories capable of doing COVID-19 tests. The algorithm sorted people into "patients under investigation", who would be given tests; and "persons under monitoring", who would not be tested, but rather told to go into a 14-day self quarantine. As of January 30, 2020. PUIs are individuals with symptoms with history of travel to China for the past 14 days and/or exposure to another individual with confirmed COVID-19 infection. PUMs are individuals with travel history and/or known exposure to a confirmed case but exhibits no symptoms.
Prioritized testing for government officials
While some VIPs were legitimately on the priority list for testing, some of them who were not PUIs did not follow the medical protocol outlined by Department of Health's triage algorithm and were tested ahead of the symptomatic people who were in the priority list, hence the VIP treatment controversy. This included family members and the staff of current and former government officials. DOH justified testing asymptomatic officials, citing the need to "preserve" certain high ranking officials. Cavite Governor Jonvic Remulla admitted getting tested for COVID-19 despite being asymptomatic, bypassing the DOH's protocol and triage testing algorithm at the time, He later apologized to the public. The DOH later issued a statement saying that these tests were a "courtesy" rather than a "VIP treatment" saying that "there is no policy for VIP treatment and that all specimens are being processed on a first-in, first-out basis with courtesy accorded to officials holding positions of national security and public health." On March 2020, DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III admitted that some "VIPs" have made direct requests to the RITM to be tested first. A senator acknowledged that they got tested not because they were classified as "PUI" but because they were considered as "VIP". On May 2020, there is a pending House Bill No. 6707 which pushes for a baseline PCR testing for "vulnerable members of society" including "vulnerable asymptomatics". Senior Citizens Partylist Rep. Francisco Datol Jr. said that he supports the house bill but congressmen and their employees should get tested first since they too "pay their contributions to the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation ". He claimed that more than 100 members of the Congress are considered senior citizens who are vulnerable to the disease and he expressed hopes that congressmen considered as senior citizens be prioritized for testing.
Reactions
This bypassing of the testing protocol of supposed VIPs has resulted in public outcry, given the scarcity of COVID-19 testing kits available to the public. On March 22, 2020, the hashtags "#NoToVIPTesting" and "#CheckYourPrivilege" trended on Twitter, reflecting public anger on the issue. Some politicians issued apologies for getting tested, acknowledging that they "may have skipped" the protocols set by the DOH for determining which patients needed to get tested first.
