COVID-19 is now a part of our community as a health villain. We have to contain the killer virus through active surveillance, early detection, isolation, case management and contact tracing to prevent the further spread.
Let us focus on contact tracing. We need a James Bond health worker in this contact tracing business because our agent has to deal with symptomatic, asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic and the persons associated with them. The work needs special training to come up with skillful execution.
Contract tracing is the identification, listing, and follow-up of persons who may have come into close contact with a confirmed Covid-19 case. It is aimed at mitigating the spread of the virus. Who is the close contact? He is the person who may have come into contact with the probable or confirmed case two days prior to onset of illness of the confirmed Covid-19.
What should be the bases of the contact tracer in identifying his close contact? His subject had face-to-face contact with a probable or confirmed case within one meter and for more than fifteen minutes; direct physical contact with a probable or confirmed case without using proper personal protective equipment.
Contact tracing is intended to interrupt ongoing transmission and reduce the spread of infection. It is also aimed at alerting close contacts to the possibility of infection and offer preventive counselling or care; and to understand the epidemiology of a disease in a particular population.
That is why we keep on emphasizing that policemen and military personnel without special training on health work should not be sent to the Covid-19 battlefield if their expertise is on shooting, martial arts, anti-terrorism and traffic management. We cannot fight the virus with guns and canons.
Contact tracing is an action and espionage work also. The James Bond contact tracer should identify settings where the contacts have visited or social interactions where the contacts have been exposed. Classic examples are mahjong sessions, birthday celebrations, mass rallies, and intimate restaurant group dating, among others.
Creation of a line list, including demographic and geographic information at barangay and sitio levels, date of first and last exposure with the confirmed or probable case. This would be followed by a thorough documentation of the common exposure and type of contact with the confirmed or probable subject.
For specific guidelines, contact tracers and their handlers could refer to the "Interim Guidelines on Contact Tracing for Confirmed 2019 Novel Coronavirus Acute Respiratory Disease Cases". Lockdown days will give opportunity to our contact tracers to personally see their targets.
Just like James Bond, a contact tracer should be discreet in his approach. The Department of Health does not want that the name of subjects shall be revealed for obvious reason. There are difficulties in tracing persons involved in a gambling session held in private houses. Parties hosted by rich people in exclusive subdivisions offer headaches to contact tracers if some party goers turned out to be positive later. They go to private hospitals and do not report to the barangay.
That could be the reason why we are so worried. We only fill up our hospitals and facility centers with Covid-19 patients but out there are the symptomatic, asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic who do not want to be tested and they are just there mixing with the innocent public. Our top leaders should break their coco shells to come up with the right move... not just arresting those without face mask. Break a leg, James Bond!