The Department of Education (DepEd) is eyeing the possibility of conducting mass testing in schools to help ensure the safety of students, teachers and non-teaching personnel. The agency is studying the cost of such endeavor as they try to cope with the the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
“Pinag-aaralan namin kung magkano ito, [kung] kaya ba,” Education Undersecretary Revsee Escobedo said in a radio interview.
[We are studying how much testing would cost and if we can afford it.]
Mass testing in schools would give officials more confidence that it would be safe for students and other personnel to physically return to schools.
Escobedo pointed out, however, that tests may be costly. There would be people who go back and forth between schools and their homes that would have to take many retests because the virus may also be contracted from their community and close kins.
“Halimbawa, negative ka sa araw na ito, uuwi ka sa bahay at komunidad, pagbalik mo ite-test ka ulit kasi baka ‘yong virus hindi mo ma-acquire sa school… kundi nandoon sa bahay at komunidad,” he explained.
[For example, your testturned out negative today, then you go home to your community, when you get back to school, you have to take the test again because you may not have gotten it from the school… but you may get it from home or your community.]
Education Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan later clarified on Twitter that there would “be a testing protocol/component in Health Standards, but ‘mass testing’ needs to be defined very carefully.”
“Just to clarify, there is no decision yet on “mass testing” in DepEd. There will be a testing protocol/component in Health Standards, but “mass testing” needs to be defined very carefully. It might be misinterpreted as testing all, which may be neither affordable nor needed,” Malaluan responded in a Tweet.
DepEd earlier announced that schools are prohibited from holding face-to-face learning, until August 24, the formal opening of the school year.
