TACLOBAN – To facilitate contact tracing of persons who may have been exposed to a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patient, Ormoc City has developed a contact tracking application using QR codes.

Called “SAFE Ormoc”, City Mayor Richard Gomez said the locally made application would give them real-time results as to where a person went for 30 days, and who were inside an establishment at a time.

"Ang contact tracing na ginagawa ng ibang local government units (LGUs), manual, nililista, hinahanap and iniinterview 'yung tao. Minsan madali tayong nakalimot. Naisip ko since nagkaroon ng COVID iniintensify natin 'yung contact tracing, we treated as an inventory of people. At any point in time, wherever you go around the city, you can backtrack instantly including the people you're with. It's easier to contact and locate them," he shared. 

The application was developed by the city government employees, together with professors from two colleges in the city.

SAFE Ormoc assigns a QR code to every individual through his email address or cellphone number.

However, in order to ensure data privacy, only the mayor, city health officer, and city police director have access to the database.

"Upon monitoring and if there is a breach, the attention of a certain establishment can be called. So far wala pa dito," Gomez shared.

There are about 2,800 establishments and 120 thousand people who have already registered using the application.