MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine News Agency on Wednesday evening said that it has revised a Tuesday report entitled "PGH health workers test negative for Covid-19" to avoid misinformation.
“The PNA apologizes for the perceived potentially misleading headline. What we meant to convey was only based on the limited information gathered during the brief virtual press conference where [Philippine General Hospital Director doctor Gerardo Legaspi] stated that among the close to 100 PUI workers subjected to quarantine, none of them has so far tested positive of Covid-19,” the state-run news agency said in a Wednesday evening statement.
“The PNA understands that the initial report could be misconstrued to mean that there had been mass testing for the PGH workforce but there was no such intention on our part.”
The headline of the said article revised around Wednesday afternoon now reads “Close to 100 PUI-health workers of PGH negative of Covid-19.”
“The article and the title have been updated to include that only the PUIs were found negative of Covid-19,” read the editor’s note added to the article.
Prior to being revised, the said article had already reached around 200,000 social media engagements and was shared by individuals and groups with considerable followings, including actress Jennelyn Mercado. She has since deleted her post.
PGH employees and other concerned individuals on social media earlier pointed out the factual inaccuracy of the original report.
This was affirmed by the hospital’s spokesperson doctor Jonas Del Rosario who told Philstar.com in a phone call interview that Legaspi was misquoted.
“I’ve read it. There seems to be something wrong with the headline,” Del Rosario said in Filipino.
He clarified what was meant by the hospital director during the Monday press briefing concerned.
"We have employees who are patients under investigation, as well as those under monitoring. They don't feel anything but the catch is they have travel history. Once you combine the PUIs and PUMs, you have around 60 so far. So they were indeed quarantined,” the spokesperson also said.
He said that none of them were admitted since they only exhibited mild symptoms, but two health care workers were admitted as PUIs.
“Of the 60 PUIs and PUMs, no tests came back positive for COVID-19. As for the two health workers who were admitted as PUIs, one has tested negative. We are still waiting for the results of the other one," he also said.
"So I think what the director wanted to say instead was ‘No PGH health workers test positive yet’."
A medical officer who works at the hospital also told Philstar.com that the PNA report was misleading because it had implied that all of its health workers were tested.
“It was misleading because no mass testing was done on us, what the director said is that we have 100 PUIs referencing to his interview with DOH,” the member of the hospital staff said.
“But for sure, no routine testing was done po to clear all of us.”
Moreover, Del Rosario said that they lacked the proper resources to test all the concerned health workers
"In as much as we want to conduct tests, we don’t have kits," he said.
"Some of them had mild symptoms and, unfortunately, you have to say 'no'. Test kits are limited, so most our employees—they have mild symptoms when we ask them—they go on self-isolation first."