BAGUIO CITY — The city’s contact tracing team, led by Mayor Benjamin Magalong, will fly to Cebu City on July 8 to train key police personnel in improving their contact tracing system to curb the transmission of the coronavirus.
Magalong said the team will stay in Cebu City for three days to train key police personnel, led by Police Regional Office-7 Director Brig. Gen. Albert Ignatius Ferro, on how the technology instrumental in kept Baguio’s coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases to a minimum.
Magalong, who earlier expressed willingness to share the technology to other local government units, readily agreed to his Ferro’s request.
He earlier worked out similar trainings for Baguio’s neighboring provinces which experienced a spike in COVID-19 cases.
The system’s conceptual framework will involve identification or detection of the source and possible sources of infection, isolation of these persons, testing, and tracing of the close and remote contacts for quarantine, testing, disinfection and medical protocols.
It uses cognitive interviewing skill, a police questioning method to establish the links of a patient. Analysis of the data from the system guides the city government’s decision on what areas to lockdown.
He clarified that the key to successful contact tracing was the quality of information obtained by tracers to get a clear picture of the city’s COVID-19 infection.
Magalong added that the system also involves convincing patients to disclose their identities to help in contact tracing which is also crucial as full disclosure can help alert contacts and cut down tracing time and resources.
Another facet was the use of a computer-aided system, which Magalong said will be a powerful tool in establishing the entire picture on the links of the patients.