MANILA - The Philippine government is now faced with the decision to either extend community quarantine measures in the interest of saving lives, or lift quarantine orders to save jobs.

It has to decide before May 31. It will have to decide with serious limitations in one of its most important tools, COVID-19 testing data.

However COVID-19 testing is decreasing at the most inopportune time, according to the ABS-CBN Data Analytics Team which looked at data from the Philippine Health Department as of May 25.

This chart shows tests of unique individuals fell to their lowest levels since May 6, and continue to slip further away from the target of 30 thousand tests per day by the end of this month. Only 5,233 unique individuals were tested on May 25th.

The number of tests being conducted, including repeat tests, is also down at just 5,914 on May 25. That is the lowest level since May 8.

This inconsistency in testing directly affects the quality of data collected, making the models and trends being formed by our epidemiologists a less accurate picture of conditions on the ground.

The Palace recently noted testing capacity has exceeded the target of 30,000 tests per day. But testing capacity is different from actual tests conducted.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said several factors led to the decline in testing, including the scarcity of tests, breaks for laboratory manpower, and extraordinary events such as the recent typhoon which stopped operations at a few Labs.

This chart shows if not for the entry of the Philippine Red Cross, testing would have declined much further. In fact, the PRC accounted for 45 percent of total tests on May 10, when the April target of 8,000 unique tests per day was finally exceeded.

The Red Cross managed to keep up its high output, maintaining at least 40 percent of total tests until May 17, when testing had hit around 10,000 a day. Unfortunately, their contribution also dropped after that.

The decline in testing has slowed progress toward the overall testing target. The government's goal is to test up to 2 percent of the entire Philippine population, and 10 percent in NCR.

Right now only 283,147 unique individuals have been tested. That’s 0.26 percent of the projected 2020 population of 109 million, and 2.05 percent of NCR’s 13.8 million population.

This also means the recent surge in new cases observed could actually be artificial, and maybe either over or understated. This is dangerous considering the decisions the government has to make using the data collected by the DOH.

The slowdown in testing affects all data points such as the positivity rate, or the percentage of positive test results relative to the individuals tested.

On May 25 it was 7.6 percent or 21,643 individuals. This is lower than the 17 percent positivity rate in early April, but again, the testing rate isn’t up to par.

Furthermore, the DOH only confirmed 14,319 cases on May 25th, 7,324 cases below the total reported positive individuals. In April the difference between confirmed cases and reported positives was only in the hundreds. That backlog also creates new problems in terms of data reliability.

It is hard to make conclusions based on inconsistent information. That said, the government cannot wait for ‘perfect data’ before making decisions.

Too much has already been sacrificed in terms of jobs and the economy. In fact, there is no such thing as perfect data, as all information gathered will have limitations in one way or another.

The situation is not ideal, and the government's own goal is to conduct 30 thousand tests a day by the end of May, which is just a few days away.

Whatever government decides in terms of relaxing restrictions, it will need to ramp up testing much faster, so it will be able to tell how much of a threat remains from COVID-19.