Defective Dick! Duterte says Gordon should explain Red Cross’ flawed COVID testing on PSG, DOF staff

“Problema ka na, problema pa ang Red Cross sa iyo!”

This was the message of President Rodrigo Duterte to Philippine Red Cross (PRC) Dick Gordon as he ordered the Department of Health to investigate the chronically faulty COVID-19 testing of the organization which the senator has ruled for 17 years.

“Are your testing facilities and equipment really as good as you say they are? Because I have heard of many false positive cases from your laboratories. Can you enlighten the Filipino people on this?” asked Duterte in a Monday night briefing.

Duterte cited the House committee hearing uncovered a complaint filed by a hospital that had 44 of its 49 medical staff tested positive for COVID. The hospital had its entire staff re-tested in another facility and the PRC results turned out be false positive.

Duterte said this was the same case with the Presidential Security Group which had 187 out of 213 or 88 percent of its personnel testing positive in the PRC Manila Laboratory but testing negative in their confirmatory test. He said the Department of Finance personnel also had 13 personnel getting false positive results from the PRC.

“The false positives in the Department of Finance may be even higher given that not all who tested positive but were asymptomatic to a confirmatory test due to financial reasons… Iyan ang masakit,” said Duterte.

He said only PRC could be blamed for the flawed results as a Harvard article stated that most false positive results were due to lab contamination or other problems on how the lab performed the test, not the limitations of the test itself.

“Ang mahirap nito, Dick, is paano ‘yung mga tao na tumanggap na lang sa PCR test ninyo na positive sila, when all along negative sila but because walang pera at hindi masyadong — the meek and assertive once, pasunod-sunod na lang and had to endure a confinement of two weeks, when all along tested negative pala sila?” said Duterte.

“Because of this information, then maybe the DOH must investigate this matter. You could be putting more people at risk. You could be falsely adding to the total positive cases per day of this country. Ilan ‘yung nadagdag doon sa positive sa isang araw, daily attack, na negative? Nasali na doon sa numero na napakarami na ang nagkasakit. How sure are we now in our figures in the veracity and truthfulness of the test combined eh marami man rin nagpunta diyan sa Red Cross? How do you backtrack? If it is impossible, what do you intend to do?” he added.

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Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)