The good news is that the country, through the Philippine Genome Center, has the capacity to identify the variants of the COVID-19 virus that are now emerging. As several local government executives have noted, however, the bad news is that it takes about two weeks for the PGC to release the results.
Like the initial long wait for the results of COVID swab tests, the two-week wait for sequencing results for potential variant infections is causing problems in the pandemic response. Health authorities have emphasized that the samples sent for sequencing are taken from COVID-positive patients, who have been isolated to prevent transmission.
This story is from the March 07, 2021 edition of The Philippine Star.
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This story is from the March 07, 2021 edition of The Philippine Star.
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