The Quezon City local government has employed a total of 350 additional contact tracers amid the surge in coronavirus disease (COVID-19) active cases in the city.
“The additional contact tracers were already part of our contact tracing army until December 31 of last year under contract with the DILG (Department of Interior and Local Government). But since we still need their services, especially during this surge, we hired them under our emergency employment program so as to continue the important task of contact tracing among many other responsibilities borne out of the rapid spread of COVID-19,” Mayor Joy Belmonte said.
The contract tracers were hired under the emergency employment program of the Public Emergency and Services Office (PESO) and the tracers were previously part of the DILG's contact tracers program.
Apart from the newly-hired contact tracers, the contracts of 360 contact tracers from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) were renewed for an additional 30 days from January 17 to February 19.
“Contact tracing is one of the key strategies that the city government has employed since the COVID-19 outbreak in order to contain the spread of cases. We were able to reach the ideal ratio of individuals traced per positive patient then, and we are still doing our best to reach the ideal numbers now despite the volume of cases,” said Dr. Rolly Cruz, head of the City Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance Unit (CESU).
Cruz said CESU has more than 1,000 contact tracers doing tasks like community case monitoring, data collecting, encoding, validating reported cases, and assisting in vaccination.