UP Sirkulo ng Kabataang Artista

12/07/2020

Panalo na ba talaga tayo sa paglaban ng COVID-19 sa bansa kung hindi man lang maabot ang target nating tests per day at kung hindi pa rin napa-flatten ang curve? Bakit nga ba hindi natin ma-maximize ang testing capacity sa Pilipinas?

May 4 na rason kung bakit ganito: mabagal na pag-accredit ng laboratories, hindi pantay na pag-allocate ng samples, may kakulangan sa personnel, at kulang ng supplies bukod sa testing kits. Para matugunan ito, dapat may central coordinating body na mabuo na tutugon sa lapses na ito.

Anong nangyayari kung hindi natin ma-maximize ang testing capacity? Natatambakan ng samples ang laboratories, at dadami ang backlogs at delays. Nakikita ito sa data na nire-release ng Department of Health (DOH) na nagpapakita ng “late cases” recently. Dahil rin dito, kawawa ang mga pasyente at ang mga nakasalamuha nila dahil natatagalan bago ang contact tracing. At kung walang maayos na data, bulag ang gobyerno sa kung anong dapat nitong gawin para i-address ang pandemic, at matatagalan pa bago makabangon ang ekonomiya at mag-improve ang kalagayan ng mga Pilipino.

Kaya naman kasama sa demand natin na free, accessible, and timely mass testing ay ang pag-increase sa ating testing capacity.

Panoorin ang video na ito para sa karagdagang information.



[Available in Tagalog, Cebuano, and English subtitles. Click the Closed Caption option to select.]

12/07/2020

Ang PCR testing ang tinaguriang gold standard at reliable na paraan ng testing para sa COVID-19. Paano nga ba ang prosesong ito? Hindi natatapos sa simpleng "test kit" ang PCR testing—marami pang iba. Panoorin ang video para malaman ang proseso ng PCR testing!



[Available in Tagalog, Cebuano, and English subtitles. Click the Closed Caption option to select.]

25/06/2020

Alam mo ba na may 2 types of tests para sa COVID-19? Ang recommended ng experts para sa paunang pag-identify kung ikaw ay may coronavirus ay sa pamamagitan ng Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) Testing o swab testing... pero maraming LGUs at companies ngayon ang gumagamit ng rapid test kits upang mag-test ng possible COVID-19 cases. Eh pero ano nga ba ang difference ng RT-PCR at Rapid Tests?

Ang RT-PCR ang gold standard sa COVID-19 testing dahil hinahanap nito ang mismong coronavirus sa katawan. Ito ang dapat na test para ma-identify ang mga may current o ongoing infection na pwedeng makahawa at kailangang ma-isolate.

Ang hinahanap naman ng rapid testing ay antibodies na pino-produce ng katawan natin kung tayo ay na-expose sa infection. Lumalabas lang ang antibodies sa dulo o pagkatapos ng sakit—too late na para ma-isolate. Pwede ring maglabas ang rapid test ng result na a.) false negative kung na-contract mo na ang virus pero maaga pa at kulang pa ang antibodies; at b.) false positive kung hindi naman pala talagang coronavirus antibodies ang na-detect ng test.

Ang high risk of false results ng rapid testing ay mas lalong pinalalala ang ating health crisis. Mahalagang piliin natin ang tamang klase ng test upang ma-identify nang tama ang virus, maiwasan ang pagkalat nito, at hindi masayang ang ating resources. Patuloy tayong manawagan sa gobyerno para sa free, accessible, at timely na RT-PCR mass testing.

For more information about the types of testing, panoorin ang video.



[Available in Tagalog, Cebuano, and English subtitles. Click the Closed Caption option to select.]

25/06/2020

More than 3 months na simula nang mag-lockdown dito sa bansa at, as of June 17, may 27,000+ confirmed COVID-19 cases na.

Pero teka, bukod sa swift passage ng Anti-Terrorism Bill, mañanita ni NCRPO chief Major General Debold Siñas, at pag-aresto kina Maria Ressa, Cebu 8, Piston 6 at iba pang mga kritiko, nasaan na nga ba tayo sa usapin ng Mass Testing na priority dapat ng gobyerno natin?

Panoorin ang quick video na ito at muli nating balikan kung ano nga ba ang mass testing.



[Available in Tagalog, Cebuano, and English subtitles. Click the Closed Caption option to select.]

13/06/2020

03/06/2020

⚠️ EXPLAINER: ON BACKLOGS ⚠️

The "backlogs" in testing and validation of COVID-19 cases have been talked about a lot in recent days. Did you know that there are actually two backlogs involved?

🔬 LABORATORY BACKLOG 🔬
🔹 WHAT IS IT: Actual swabs that still don't have results after 1-2 days in the lab (Note: PCR testing should take no more than 1-2 days)
🔹 WHAT CAUSES IT: Insufficient testing capacity because of lack of personnel, lack of supplies or equipment, uneven sample allocation across labs
🔹 CURRENT STATUS: Latest available data - 1,731 samples still in backlog as of May 29; UPDATE: 2,239 samples as of June 1 (DOH Data Drop)
🔹 WHAT CAN BE DONE: Improve lab testing capacity - more labs, expand sample allocation, secure supplies, hire personnel! READ: bit.ly/SUACPolicyNote

🗂 VALIDATION BACKLOG 🗂
🔸 WHAT IS IT: Tests that already have results, but are still undergoing validation by DOH so they are not yet included in the official tally of confirmed cases
🔸 WHAT CAUSES IT: Slow validation by DOH (checking data, tracking cases, looking out for duplicates) because of manual encoding on paper forms or not enough people to do the clerical work
🔸 CURRENT STATUS: 6,800+ according to DOH USec Vergeire (June 1)*; 5,903 difference between positive individuals and confirmed cases (June 2)**
🔸 WHAT CAN BE DONE: Improve validation capacity by hiring more people, switching to an electronic system, and strengthening the reporting system for labs (the COVIDKAYA system is meant to address this)

🤔 WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT THE BACKLOGS? 🧐
1️⃣ Results are delayed, causing anxiety for people waiting for test results, or major disruptions for others (like what happened with OFWs); at worst, it can compromise the health care given to patients.
2️⃣ Contact tracing is slowed down which makes it harder for us to find and isolate potential carriers.
3️⃣ Data is undermined because of the backlogs—it's harder for us to see the real state of the pandemic, with results coming in late and the confirmed case count delayed.
4️⃣ Policies are flawed if they are based on bad data: at the local or national level, policymakers might make the wrong decisions based on limited evidence.
5️⃣ The public is confused without clear, transparent, and timely data reporting.



* Reported on June 1, 2020: https://www.cnn.ph/news/2020/6/1/DOH-validation-6-800-COVID-19-test-results.html
** Retrieved from https://www.doh.gov.ph/covid19tracker on June 3, 2020.

02/06/2020

FACT-CHECK: People without symptoms CAN transmit COVID-19!

📘 DEFINITIONS: "asymptomatic" and "pre-symptomatic" 📕

A COVID-19 patient without symptoms can be ASYMPTOMATIC or PRE-SYMPTOMATIC. Asymptomatic cases never develop symptoms at all. On the other hand, pre-symptomatic patients just haven't developed symptoms as of the moment. The incubation period for COVID-19 can take up to 14 days [1]. There is NO reliable way yet for us to tell if a COVID-19 case without symptoms is asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic.

📈 HOW MANY asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic cases are there? 📉

There isn't an exact, fixed number. However, we do have some case studies:

🔹 Among the 634 cases reported on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, 50% were reported to have no symptoms. Later estimates showed that 18% of all cases were truly asymptomatic [2].

🔹 50% of positive cases in Iceland were reported to have no symptoms at the time of testing. At the time, 5% of the whole population had already been tested [3].

🔹 In a nursing home in Washington State, USA, 27 out of the 48 (56%) who tested positive were asymptomatic at testing. Eventually, 24 out of the 27 “asymptomatics” developed symptoms and were reclassified as “presymptomatic” [4].

🧐 CAN YOU CATCH COVID-19 from someone without symptoms? 🧐

YES, both asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic COVID-19 patients are contagious. As early as February, pre-symptomatic transmission was reported in China [5]. Studies have found that the viral load (or amount of virus detected) is already high before symptoms develop in pre-symptomatic cases, and that the viral load is similar among cases with or without symptoms. It is likely, though not certain, that viral load affects transmissibility or contagiousness [4, 6, 7].

One study estimates that pre-symptomatic cases may account for 44% of transmission, meaning almost half of the infections occurred before the patient developed symptoms [8]. Another study estimates that cases without symptoms may be responsible for up to 69% of all infections [9].

Because COVID-19 can spread so easily from people without symptoms, measures like thermal scanning and symptom checking, while important, are not enough [4]. We need to INCREASE our testing capacity for proactive mass testing: we should actively and quickly find and isolate asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic carriers among people with exposure such as traced contacts, frontline healthcare workers, and high-risk communities.

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REFERENCES

1. World Health Organization. (2020). Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Situation Report – 73. Retrieved fromhttps://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200402-sitrep-73-covid-19.pdf

2. Mizumoto, K., Kagaya, K., Zarebski, A., & Chowell, G. (2020). Estimating the asymptomatic proportion of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship, Yokohama, Japan, 2020. Eurosurveillance, 25(10). http://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.es.2020.25.10.2000180

3. John, T. (2020). Iceland lab's testing suggests 50% of coronavirus cases have no symptoms. Cable News Network. Retrieved from https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/01/europe/iceland-testing-coronavirus-intl/index.html

4. Gandhi, M., Yokoe, D., & Havlir, D. (2020). Asymptomatic Transmission, the Achilles’ Heel of Current Strategies to Control Covid-19. New England Journal Of Medicine. http://doi.org/10.1056/nejme2009758

5. Ye, F., Xu, S., Rong, Z., Xu, R., Liu, X., & Deng, P. et al. (2020). Delivery of infection from asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 in a familial cluster. International Journal Of Infectious Diseases, 94, 133-138. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.03.042

6. Zou, L., Ruan, F., Huang, M., Liang, L., Huang, H., & Hong, Z. et al. (2020). SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load in Upper Respiratory Specimens of Infected Patients. New England Journal Of Medicine, 382(12), 1177-1179. http://doi.org/10.1056/nejmc2001737

7. Joynt, G., & Wu, W. (2020). Understanding COVID-19: what does viral RNA load really mean?. The Lancet Infectious Diseases. http://doi.org/10.1016/s1473-3099(20)30237-1

8. He, X., Lau, E., Wu, P., Deng, X., Wang, J., & Hao, X. et al. (2020). Temporal dynamics in viral shedding and transmissibility of COVID-19. Nature Medicine, 26(5), 672-675. http://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0869-5

9. Emery, J. et al. (2020). The contribution of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections to transmission - a model-based analysis of the Diamond Princess outbreak. Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases. Retrieved from https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/asymp-transmission.html

22/05/2020

How many times do we have to spell out MASS TESTING for you, Harry Roque?

Mass testing DOES NOT mean we test everyone.

17/05/2020

[IN A NUTSHELL] Building Our Testing Capacity 💪

Why is our ability to test so limited? Where even are the bottlenecks?

The need to build our testing capacity is more urgent than ever as we enter the 'new normal'...but, how?

Read on! 🧐

(Royalty-free vector art by .vector)

16/05/2020

[IN A NUTSHELL] The Limits of our Testing

You may have heard that the Philippines has a 'testing backlog'. What factors are causing this? And, what really is the current state of our testing capacity?

Read on and judge for yourself if we are really 'flattening the curve'...

Did you miss us? 😉 Stay tuned for part two!

16/05/2020

Have you heard of Prodex-B? How about the Fabunan Antiviral Injection? Is it true that these are the cures we've been looking for?

Read on to find out what these formulations are and if they can really treat COVID-19.

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SOURCES:

[1] https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2016053121A1/en
[2] https://patents.google.com/patent/US6172053B1/en?oq=US6172053
[3] https://www.fda.gov.ph/fda-advisory-no-2020-452-baseless-claims-of-prodex-b-as-anti-viral-treatment-for-covid-19/
[4] https://www.fda.gov.ph/fda-warns-the-public-on-drugs-and-vaccines-with-unproven-claims-for-covid-19-treatment/
[5] Singanayagam, A., Glanville, N., Girkin, J. L., Ching, Y. M., Marcellini, A., Porter, J. D., Toussaint, M., Walton, R. P., Finney, L. J., Aniscenko, J., Zhu, J., Trujillo-Torralbo, M. B., Calderazzo, M. A., Grainge, C., Loo, S. L., Veerati, P. C., Pathinayake, P. S., Nichol, K. S., Reid, A. T., James, P. L., … Johnston, S. L. (2018). Corticosteroid suppression of antiviral immunity increases bacterial loads and mucus production in COPD exacerbations. Nature communications, 9(1), 2229. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04574-1
[6] Giles, A.J., Hutchinson, M.N.D., Sonnemann, H.M. et al. Dexamethasone-induced immunosuppression: mechanisms and implications for immunotherapy. j. immunotherapy cancer 6, 51 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40425-018-0371-5
[7] Ni, Y., Chen, G., Sun, J. et al. The effect of corticosteroids on mortality of patients with influenza pneumonia: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Crit Care 23, 99 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13054-019-2395-8