STARTING next week, 37 newly hired contact tracers will be deployed in Mandaue City.
All 37 have completed their training, which was held from Aug. 10 to 13, 2020.
Lawyer Julius Ceasar Entise, head of the Contact Tracing Team of Mandaue City, said one contact tracer will be deployed for each of the city’s 27 barangays.
The remaining 10 will be deployed at the Contact Tracing Operations Center (CTOC) or at the Tactical Operations Center.
Entise said the contact tracers will visit identified coronavirus-positive individuals in their homes, together with the barangay contact tracers and a police officer from Mandaue City Police Office.
The contact tracers will supervise the barangay contact tracing team as well as do field work in case there is information that the barangay contact tracers failed to gather.
Entise said he will supervise and observe the contact tracers.
“I will personally look into their work, whether they are working as expected or if there’s a need for us to make necessary adjustments,” said Entise.
In the past few weeks, a discrepancy has been observed in the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) data released by the City Government and the Department of Health (DOH).
Entise said such discrepancy could cause a big problem since officials base their decisions on the available data.
In order to address this, there will be only one source of data for Mandaue City Health Office (MCHO), which will be forwarded to the DOH and the City’s Emergency Operation Center (EOC), said Entise.
Aside from the data management team, the contact tracers dispatched on field will also be part of the solution through reporting data collected on field to the Contact Tracing Operations Center (CTOC) or at the Tactical Operations Center.
The data will then be sent to MCHO and EOC. / KFD