Coronovirus in the Philippines

Jim how do you get a COVID test in the Philippines?

Is the only way to go to a hospital?

Did the hospital do a nasal and tonsil swab PCR test on your wife?

My daughter has all the symptoms and the cough is getting worse she was off school on Wednesday but the sickness started last Sunday, I don't know how to get her tested.

Thanks Jim.

Thanks Mike, Nanay is taking her to a clinic in the morning, if it is Covid then Nanay, Dhang and James have been exposed for well over a week so the chances are they are either immune or asymptomatic, it is also possible that one of them brought it back to the house as Janna has not been out often, she was out on Sunday but you can't get sick with symptoms the same day so it is hard to see where she would have got it.

It could be a cold or chest infection related to the typhoon last week, who knows, but the symptoms match Covid-19 and I heard her cough and the way she was coughing was very like all the people I have seen on TV it is a dry cough and she has headache and pains in her legs, the pains in her legs really worry me, she says no pain in her arms but leg pain could indicate blood issues.

No rash Jim, I think the family might have identified dengue, but there is also a Covid-19 rash, it is one of the major symptoms in the west.

In my own experience this year I had so many Covid-19 symptoms that even my doctors in hospital asked me if I had been socialising, I responded that I am nearly 62 and obese and that no way would I take a chance, I was angry at the question, I think the doctor was making a point to his students, there were a lot at my hospital bed, at my expense, he accepted my acerbic response graciously.

Basically it is a difficult disease to correctly identify without a clear PCR test and as in your links the RT-PCR is the gold standard.

Covid-19 shares so many symptoms with so many common colds, the quirk with this illness is the sudden downturn and the production of hyaluronic acid in the alveoli of the lungs which is basically like gum, that's what is killing people and that is what is scary.

I expect my daughter will get better, but I want to know for sure what is wrong because the whole family is at risk and we could put others in our extended family at risk and we could endanger our local community, I don't want that responsibility to be on Janna's head she is only 12 years old.

Doctors sent her home with inappropriately strong medicines, no test, the medicines they gave her indicate they thought it was COVID (in my opinion) Azithromycin was one.

I'm just waiting for the next couple of days she says she feels better and the cough is not as bad, at this point it is 7 days since first symptom so if she keeps getting better then fine, I will not assume it was COVID and they still need to be very careful inside and outside the house.