Quezon City appeals to hospitals, labs to submit testing data

QUEZON CITY , Philippines — In an effort to hasten its contact tracing efforts, the Quezon City government has appealed to public and private hospitals as well as laboratories in the city to furnish the local government with a copy of the “line list” or roster of individuals who underwent testing for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Rolly Cruz, who heads the Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (CESU), said the data would be used as basis to monitor close contacts of probable and suspected carriers of the virus.

Cruz said contact tracing could be immediately conducted if they have the list of those who got tested for COVID-19 even before the release of the results.

“We are requesting hospitals, laboratories and other disease reporting units to provide us the list on a regular basis,” he said.

Cruz said there is a three- to four-day delay in the data forwarded to the city by the Department of Health (DOH).

“We have to be proactive and get the list from other sources aside from the national government,” he said.

According to Joseph Juico, lead coordinator of the city’s COVID-19 response program, the delay in contact tracing due to the lack of data can cause damaging ripple effects in the efforts to respond to the pandemic.

“If data is incomplete and delayed, instead of nipping infections in the bud, we end up locking down whole communities for 14 days because the virus has already spread,” Juico said. “If we have patients’ complete contact details immediately, we can prevent them from infecting others and prevent community transmission.”

Mayor Joy Belmonte said it is high time for private and public health institutions to collaborate further toward improving gathering and recording of COVID-19 cases.

“When data is incomplete and reported late, the response of the city to the pandemic suffers. Adding more contact tracers and facilities is futile if the data is too poor to be of any use. Timely information is key to overcoming this disease,” Belmonte said.

The mayor earlier called on the DOH to release complete information about COVID-19 patients to ensure that contact tracing is immediately conducted.

Belmonte noted a data drop earlier this month where over 500 cases have no addresses and contact numbers, forcing them to tag the cases as “unknown.”

As of Wednesday, the DOH recorded 8,016 cases of COVID-19 in Quezon City.

Of the figure, city health officials validated 9,941 cases, including 5,590 recoveries and 328 deaths. There are 1,997 active cases.