Quezon City offers online booking for free swab testing

MANILA, Philippines — The Quezon City government has expanded its free swab testing initiative by allowing residents to book appointments online.

The online reservation system, which can be accessed through http://bit.ly/QCfreetest, was established to support contact tracing initiatives on the ground, said Mayor Joy Belmonte.

“We have opened an online platform so our residents can come forward and report to us immediately especially if they are close contacts of COVID-positive patients or if they are experiencing any symptoms,” she added.

Residents who will be prioritized for the swab testing are close contacts or those who were exposed to COVID-positive patients, those experiencing symptoms, pregnant women, dialysis patients and those who will undergo medical operations and need COVID-19 test results.

City Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance Unit head Rolando Cruz said the online swab testing initiative can accommodate 100 reservations per day.

“We are continuously finding ways to strengthen and improve our testing efforts. And as we realize that more residents are getting sick and need to confirm their status, we decided to expand this free swab service,” he said.

After submitting the form, a representative will reach out to the resident to verify details and assess his or her condition.

A confirmation text will be sent notifying the resident of the schedule of his swab test.

Cruz said that swab testing is strictly by appointment and no walk-ins are allowed.

“Due to the volume of persons we need to test and the limitation in our test kits supply per day, we have to allocate our resources to those who need it the most,” he added, explaining why there are priorities on who will be swabbed.

The city is set to open five new community swab-testing centers next week, which will supplement the 11 existing centers across the city.

Belmonte said there are also two mobile testing vehicles going around depressed communities and those under special concern lockdown.

Recently, the city partnered with the Philippine Red Cross for the allocation of additional RT-PCR and antigen test kits that can be used in contact tracing efforts.