BAGUIO CITY – The Baguio City Health Services Office has appealed to residents to answer "patiently, truthfully, and with all honesty" the contact-tracing forms found in offices, transport, and business establishments here.
City Epidemiologist Dr. Donna Lorenzana Tubera-Panes said the success of local contact tracing efforts largely depends on the accuracy of data.
She said that in the efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) beginning with an identified carrier, accurate data could prevent discrepancies in statistics being presented in the local and national levels.
“One’s honesty can spell the difference between life and death while COVID-19 hovers,” she said.
She added that data submitted to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) influences levels of quarantine measures imposed by Malacañang over local government units.
Panes said some quarters blame health officers for the data discrepancies.
"The people we serve should likewise realize we can only diagnose a problem correctly if data given to us are correct," she added.
Panes said contact tracers sometimes have difficulty locating possible COVID-19 positives because the information they enter in logbooks were lacking or false.
These errors or omissions include false names, wrong addresses, or non-existing contact numbers.
She said the best contribution residents can do to ease the overwhelming task the contact tracing team now experiences is to provide clear and correct information about themselves.