THE Iloilo City Government will launch on Monday, August 10, a smartphone app called QVID Official Companion for employees of City Hall in an effort to fast-track contact tracing in an event of confirmed case of coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
The mobile application will work as a contact tracing system. It uses QR code technology.
"Every employee of City Hall will generate the QR code -- this is a way of tracking the presence of employees. Actually, it has three mechanism -- one is the admin, next for the individual employee, then we have the checkpoint," project team leader Mark Milan Jagunap said.
"So, every department, every floor has designated person who will do the scanning. You will have the option -- if you have the Android phone, it can download the app for you to use. We will print out QR codes then the checkpoint. But for now, we do not have for iPhones or IOS users -- only Android users will be scanned by the checker of every department and every floor," he added.
The contact tracing apps can be a crucial factor in fighting the pandemic.
Thus, the City Government needs a massive, carefully coordinated strategy between the assigned project management team, department heads, heads of offices and executive assistants, said Jagunap.
Each admin of the office will register all personnel and monitor the entrance and exit points and ensure that all have logged in and out during their duty.
"We are asking for the cooperation of employees to scan or to have their IDs scanned for the protection of everyone. And at the same time, at least, we will have a sense of security that if someone will be infected we will be able to trace immediately," Jagunap said.
The best way is for the app to be able to trace as many relevant contacts as possible and to find and alert the people in case of exposure.
"The ability for the City Government is to have the capability to trace initially with the employees because it's very important to have continuous services. We need to protect our employees. And that's when the developed app will play a significant role in the Covid response," Jagunap said. (PR)