Pasig residents urged to undergo free COVID-19 testing

MANILA, Philippines — Stressing that people should also consider the welfare of others, Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto urged residents to avail themselves of the city government’s free COVID-19 testing.

Sotto said undergoing tests for COVID-19 is the only way to effectively defeat the virus as it would result in effective contact tracing measures to locate other possible cases.

“When the city offers free testing, we should immediately accept. We should not only think of ourselves but the welfare of others,” he said in Filipino in a Facebook post on Friday.

Pasig has its own laboratory that can process reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction tests.

According to Sotto, the COVID-19 pandemic will not end until all the infected and their close contacts are isolated from the rest of the community.

There are at least 7,752 COVID-19 cases in Pasig. Of the number, 332 patients have died while 7,149 have recovered.

A total of 285 other patients are still recuperating from the virus in hospitals and quarantine facilities.

The local government is aiming to subject around round 3,000 market vendors, public transportation drivers and food handlers to random tests.