DAVAO ORIENTAL – COVID-19 positive patients who have already completed their 14-day quarantine and whose symptoms have already resolved will no longer need to undergo repeat testing.

This was announced by the Provincial Task Force on COVID-19 on Thursday, August 6, as the province is set to implement the Department of Health’s guidelines for discharge and recovery specified under DM 2020-0258.

Under item number 9 of the said directive, “Discharge and recovery criteria for suspect, probable, and confirmed COVID-19 cases shall no longer entail repeat testing.”

This means that “Symptomatic patients who have clinically recovered and are no longer symptomatic for at least 3 days and have completed at least 14 days of isolation either at home, temporary treatment and monitoring facility, or hospital, can be tagged as a recovered confirmed case and reintegrated to the community without the need for further testing, provided that a licensed medical doctor clears the patient. Patients who test RT-PCR positive and remain asymptomatic for at least 14 days can discontinue quarantine and tagged as a recovered confirmed case without the need for further testing, provided a licensed medical doctor clears the patient,” reads the guidelines.

Allaying public fears, PTF on COVID-19 Action Officer Dr. Reden Bersaldo said that this guideline is backed by the intensive studies done by infectious disease experts. These studies are also strongly supported by the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Based on these researches, said Dr. Bersaldo, COVID-19 patients are no longer infectious on the tenth day from the day of exposure. He said that although there are instances of individuals testing positive after a repeat RT-PCR swab test, these positive results are likely caused by dead viral remnants. “This means the virus detected by the testing machine are already dead fragments of the virus,” he said.

Dr. Bersaldo said that continuing the unnecessary testing will only contribute to the congestion of the Temporary Treatment and Monitoring Facilities at the city and municipal Local Government Units. And with the continuous influx of Locally Stranded Individuals (LSI) and Returning Overseas Filipinos (ROF) arriving in the province, COVID-19 cases are also being expected to rise which will only aggravate the shortage of facilities.

Moreover, Dr. Bersaldo said that discharging the patients after 14-days, provided they are cleared by the doctor, will prevent the unnecessarily prolonged stay of the patients at the isolation centers in the city and municipalities which can have a drastic impact on the mental health of the patients, of which some have stayed at the isolation centers for more than two months.

Moreover, adopting the guidelines will lessen the logistics requirements of the LGUs as well as provide respite to the already “exhausted” health workers and COVID-19 frontliners.

In the province of Davao Oriental, almost 90 percent of the COVID-19 cases are asymptomatic and more than half of its confirmed cases have already recovered.

Currently, the Provincial Health Office has already cascaded the decision tool prescribed by the DOH for physicians who have the sole authority to tag patients as recovered and release patients for discharge. By PIO