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Opposition Senator Leila de Lima on Tuesday expressed alarm over the reported surge of text messages containing spam, including sketchy job offers that promised high salaries, saying it not only raises data privacy concerns but has put the country’s contact tracing efforts against COVID-19 in a bad light.

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The Quezon City government on Wednesday, Oct. 27, announced that its contact tracing capacity continues to improve.

The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) called on Saturday, Sept. 18 all local government units (LGUs) to employ at least one contact tracer per barangay “with population not exceeding 5,000’’ in a bid to enhance the case findings and contact tracing efforts with the pilot enforcement of the Alert Level System in Metro Manila.

The Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines, Inc. (PHAPi) urged the national government to improve its contact tracing efforts to break the chain of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) transmission.

Former Health Secretary and Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin on Wednesday, Sept. 15 reminded the government on the need to conduct aggressive testing and contact tracing as it starts to implement granular lockdowns under a new alert level system as part of its anti-COVID-19 measures.

An official from the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) called on the national government to implement a more targeted contact tracing during the implementation of granular lockdowns in Metro Manila.

Senator Nancy Binay on Sunday, Sept. 12 renewed her appeal for the state economic managers to boost the government’s COVID-19 response by allocating a bigger budget for contact tracing in the proposed P5.024-trillion national budget for 2022.

The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) said the agency needs an additional budget to fund its contact tracers.

The local government of Caloocan City has started the contact tracing of persons who were present during the hostage taking incident in C-3 Road in Caloocan City on Friday night.

Vice President Leni Robredo has renewed her call for the government to conduct more COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) testing after the number of infections due to the Delta variant rose to an all-time high of 22,366 new cases on Monday, Aug. 30.

Pateros Mayor Miguel “Ike” Ponce III said the municipal government has temporarily shut down a vaccination site after health workers tested positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Malacañang said that the contact tracing application StaySafe PH having “almost no impact” was a cause for concern, citing the importance of automation in the country’s fight against the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Despite the national government mandating its use in all establishments in the Philippines and by local government units since last year, the StaySafe application made “almost no impact” on the country’s contact tracing efforts.

More than a year after the pandemic started and the Philippine government is still not doing enough COVID-19 tests with Vice President Leni Robredo calling on the government to test more because the threat of the more transmissible Delta variant pushes the number of daily cases past 14,000.

Pateros Mayor Miguel “Ike” Ponce III on Saturday said they are tracing the close contacts of the two Delta variant cases identified in the municipality.

The government is willing to allocate additional funds to sustain the contact tracing program if needed to boost the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The Philippine Medical Students' Association (PMSA) urged the national government to strengthen contact tracing amid the threat of the more transmissible coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Delta variant.