THE National Task Force for Covid-19 Response chief implementor Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. is set to recommend local government units in the country to adopt contact tracing measures done by the country’s summer capital.
In his visit to Baguio City, Galvez said despite the complexity of the contact tracing procedure, Mayor Benjamin Magalong has shown this can be done with the use of artificial intelligence and technology.
“We are now seeing that with the said procedure, Baguio looks like it is not under lockdown and that it is little by little opening up its small businesses which is really encouraging to which we can live in a new normal. What we are looking at here is that with the use of the said procedure and all surveillance tools like anti body tests and PCRs, X-rays and also city scan, this is a good example that he can combine all of these to complement and generate an aggressive contact tracing,” Galvez explained.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) earlier praised Baguio City for ordering aggressive contact tracing in the city to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“I believe that we will adopt this kind of measure in responding to this particular virus and similar future health related issues. We will talk to the league of Provincial Governors and Mayors to really look at it as a good reference for them because this can be a model but can be modified based on the situation in their area of responsibility,” the Covid-19 Chief Implementor stated.
Contact tracing is a labor-intensive process of finding out who positive coronavirus patients have been in proximity with and testing and quarantining various connections if necessary.
Instead of asking Covid-19 patients to simply list persons they interacted with, Baguio authorities seeks to “refresh” the memory of positive patients on where they went to identify possible carriers of the disease, including those who are not personal acquaintances.
Magalong applied the use of this measure in gathering the contacts easily for the LGU to respond quickly, after initially using this technology in crime efficiency solution during his stint as Police Regional Office Cordillera (PRO-COR) regional director, and as national chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) which is currently being used by the Philippine National Police (PNP).
Galvez shares the insight of Magalong on the importance of doing information collection effectively as stories need to be established through cognitive interviewing, which involves not just simply asking questions but actually helping the interviewees remember past incidents.
He added that the involvement of the LGU is important for contact tracing as leadership is important in the establishment of direction and focus on measures to be done to respond to such cases, aside from investing on technological solutions.