Public should be told more about the importance of contact tracing in fight against COVID-19

People cross the street in downtown Cebu City in this file photo.

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Police Brigadier General Albert Ignatius Ferro, director of Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7), believes the public needs to know more about the importance of contact tracing in the fight against the spread of COVID-19.

Ferro said more communication from the government to convince the public to cooperate in contact tracing should be done after reports surfaced that some persons who were direct contacts of COVID-19 positive patients refused to be swabbed for testing.

Read: EOC warns government personnel: Cooperate with contact tracing or else…

Although these persons could also be arrested for refusal to cooperate during a health crisis, Ferro said that it is also important that there is more efforts done to convince the public to cooperate.

“We have to be humane as well,” he said. “We should be persuasive, it is a matter of communicating. Probably there is a lesser effort in communicating. We just have to convince them,” said Ferro.

With this, Ferro urged the public to realize the importance of their responsibility in the community, especially during this time of health crisis. He emphasized that cooperation is needed to be able get through this pandemic.

Ferro warned the public that if the they continue to be non-cooperative, there will be no progress in the city and the problem will just get bigger.

“Do you want the President to call Cebuanos ‘hard-headed’ again? For the last several pronouncements of the President, we never heard him saying that Cebuanos are not cooperating.  So we better stick to what we have done for the past month,” Ferro said. /bmjo