Philippines ramps up coronavirus testing to find thousands of unknown infections

Members of the public, detained for roaming the streets without relevant passes amid the Covid-19 pandemic, squat at a distance from one another as they are processed outside a police station at Quezon City in Manila on Tuesday (April 14). The Quezon City local government personnel and elements of the Quezon City Police Department in Manila arrested scores of people roaming the streets without quarantine passes in violation of the ECQ being enforced in the city. Violators have been lectured on the importance of heeding the call to stay home amidst the corona virus pandemic spreading in the communities. The current infection data for the Philippines is close to 5000 positive covid19 infections as of Tuesday. - AFP

MANILA: The Philippines introduced a more aggressive testing programme for the Covid-19 (coronavirus) outbreak on Tuesday (Apr 14) to locate as many as 15,000 unknown infections, despite having implemented some of Asia's strictest and earliest lockdown measures.

Authorities have targeted several phases of ramped-up testing, starting on Tuesday with 8,000 people working at or admitted to Manila hospitals that were treating patients of Covid-19, a disease that has so far infected 4,932 people locally and killed 315.