{"id":253306,"date":"2020-04-28T02:52:37","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T06:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=253306"},"modified":"2020-04-28T02:52:37","modified_gmt":"2020-04-28T06:52:37","slug":"200-companies-to-conduct-1m-covid-19-tests-by-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/04\/28\/200-companies-to-conduct-1m-covid-19-tests-by-may\/","title":{"rendered":"200 companies to conduct 1M Covid-19 tests by May"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said the companies have agreed to participate in Project ARK (anti-body rapid test kit), a private-sector initiative to help jumpstart the economy after over two months of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ). (Pexels photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Around 200 companies are preparing to conduct one million coronavirus disease (Covid-19) tests among their employees by May.<\/p>\n

Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said the companies have agreed to participate in Project ARK (anti-body rapid test kit), a private-sector initiative to help jumpstart the economy after over two months of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).<\/p>\n

He said the only way to flatten the curve or slow down the rate of Covid-19 infection is to conduct more targeted mass testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re bringing about 1 million rapid test kits by May \u2013\u00a0malaki iyan<\/em>\u00a0(that\u2019s huge),\u201d Concepcion said in a virtual presser on Monday.<\/p>\n

Concepcion said Project ARK also aims to help about six to seven provincial hospitals expand their testing capacity.<\/p>\n

He, however, emphasized that those who will be found positive for Covid-19 under the rapid anti-body testing will also have to undergo real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur whole objective is to really focus on test, test and test; and that will give us more visibility, then the Cabinet and the government will be allowed to open up more of the economy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Concepcion emphasized the need to prioritize the reopening of the economy to ensure Filipinos can resume their source of livelihood.<\/p>\n

\u201cIyon ang kailangan natin, iyong kabuhayan. Kasi kung walang kabuhayan, wala rin, marami rin ang mamatay dahil sa<\/em>\u00a0hunger,\u00a0dahil sa walang medisina<\/em>\u00a0(That\u2019s what we need, livelihood. Without livelihood, there\u2019s nothing, many would die because of hunger, because there\u2019s no medicine),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Under the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases’ (IATF) revised guidelines on expanded testing for Covid-19, the RT-PCR test approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and validated by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) is the confirmatory test for Covid-19.<\/p>\n

Rapid antibody-based test kits must be used in conjunction with RT-PCR.<\/p>\n

As of Monday, health authorities reported a total of 7,777 confirmed cases of Covid-19, 511 deaths, and 932 recoveries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Around 200 companies are preparing to conduct one million coronavirus disease (Covid-19) tests among their employees by May. Presidential …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":244081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253306"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253307,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253306\/revisions\/253307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}