City asks DILG to keep COVID-19 contact tracers

CEBU, Philippines —  Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella is asking the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to extend the services of the contact tracers whose contracts ended last December 2020.

The Freeman learned from the Emergency Operations Center and City Councilor Joel Garganera that Labella has sent a letter to DILG to formalize the request.

“The mayor sent a letter to DILG asking for an extension, bisan ug sa first quarter lang of this year,” Garganera said.

(The mayor sent a letter to DILG asking for an extension, at least for the first quarter of the year.)

Garganera said it is better to keep the services of more contact tracers, considering that the number of active COVID-19 cases in the city is back to over a hundred with the movement of people during the holidays.

Contact tracers are also important especially with the discovery of the new strain of the coronavirus.

“With what has happened in the month of December, mas maayo man gyud nga kompleto ta, plus, naa pa gyud ning new variant (of Covid-19), simbako lang,” Garganera said.

(With what happened in the month of December, it is better if we’re still complete, especiall with the new variant of COVID-19.)

DILG has hired close to 50,000 contact tracers nationwide. Of this number, 5,000 were assigned in Central Visayas and 600 were in Cebu City.

No less than DILG Secretary Eduardo Ano recognizes contact tracing as a “game-changer” in the detection and prevention of the spread of COVID-19.

Garganera said the city plans to absorb some of the contract tracers in the event DILG will not extend their contract.

The EOC has also asked Police Colonel Josephino Ligan not to recall the police’s contact tracers just yet to augment the city’s contact tracing team.

In the Department of Health (DOH)-7’s case bulletin for January 3, Cebu City has a total of 167 total active cases including 16 new cases.

In EOC’s own data, they have verified 131 active cases, 61 of which are isolated at the Noah Complex while 15 are in the hospitals.

For the first three days of this month, January 3’s positivity rate is the highest at 7.27 percent out of only 204 tested. The World Health Organization’s threshold of a safe zone is 5 percent.

The EOC is anticipating more new cases in the coming days. — Decemay Padilla, JMO (FREEMAN)