Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong. INQUIRER.net file photo / CATHY MIRANDA
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Over three weeks since his visit to Cebu City to bring in his City’s best practices, Baguio City Mayor and contact tracing czar Benjamin Magalong said Cebu City’s contact tracing activities had relative improved.
Magalong, speaking before a pre-event of the President Duterte’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday, July 25, said the city was now able to at times identify 30 close contacts per patient although its average count of close contacts traced per patient was still below 30.
“The good news is they are implementing it. Siguro nahihirapan lang sila sa number of contact tracers kasi yung ating PNP cannot provide everything, nagkakaroon sila ng shortage,” Magalong said.
(The good news is they are implementing it. Maybe, they found it challenging to implement because of the number of contact tracers because our PNP cannot provide everything and they had a shortage.)
“The point is, tumataas na yung kanilang numbers in terms of close contacts. Until now, hindi pa rin nila nare-reach yung 30 pero there are instances na may nare-reach silang 30,” he added.
(The point is their numbers in terms of close contacts are increasing. Until now, they still had not yet reached the 30 per contact person but there are instances that they had reached 30.)
Magalong said the number of contact traced individuals that the city yielded now was a far improvement from the merely five close contacts that the city used to trace per patient.
“According to one particular person, who is very knowledgeable, doon sa 130 swerte na raw na 50 percent o 40 percent ang naco-contact trace. The rest, wala na, napapabayaan na lang. But ngayon tinututukan talaga nila ni mayor with the help of General Mel Feliciano and General Macario,” he added.
(According to one particular person, who is very knowledgeable, that of the 130, it would be lucky to have contact traced 50 or 40 percent. The rest are just not being pursued. But now, the mayor is really focusing on the contact tracing with the help of General Mel Feliciano and General Macario.)
Magalong said it could really be challenging for the city to contact trace considering that Cebu City logged about 100 additional cases daily.
Magalong said the local government units, not only Cebu City, still lacked contact tracers despite having the Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) stepping in to help.
The proposed hiring of 50,000 more contact tracers, he added was still tied with the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act 2 which had yet to be enacted.
Magalong urged the LGUs to hire their own contact tracers for the meantime in order not to delay the contact tracing efforts and prevent further spread of the virus.
“At the same time, marami rin namang gustong mag-volunteer as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility…We can always train them,” Magalong.
(At the same time, there are a lot of people who like to volunteer as part of the corporate social responsibility … we can always train them.)
The contact tracing czar, however, is not sold to the recent ideas of getting gossipers to be part of the contact tracing activities.
Magalong said that those qualified to become contact tracers would be persons with critical thinking skills, investigative and inquisitive mindset, and basic to extensive knowledge in Information Technology.
“Maraming nagsasabi na pwedeng mga chismosa, probably mayroong downside, mayroong upside, pero siguro mas marami ang downside doon kasi what is important sa contact tracing is we have to gather facts, hindi po chismis,” Magalong said.
(Many have said that gossipers can be contact tracers. Probably there are downsides and upsides to this idea but I believe there are more downside to this idea because what is important in contact tracing is we have to gather facts and not idle talk or rumors.)/dbs