Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 30) — In his latest report to Congress, President Rodrigo Duterte said the government has ramped up COVID-19 efforts by signing up thousands of people to help in contact across the country.
The President said that as of June 24, 54,183 people have been hired nationwide, and they have traced and assessed 118,818 close contacts and 113,254 general contacts.
Apart from personal contact tracing, the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) is looking at technology that can help in COVID-19 efforts, he said in the report.
The StaySafe app, the country’s official contact tracing application, logs a person’s health status after it is entered in the app. The President’s report added that, to date, 240 local government units are using the app, while the rest report directly to the Department of Health though COVID KAYA, a digital app for frontliners.
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At Tuesday’s televised Laging Handa briefing, Dr. Rabindra Abeyasin, the World Health Organization (WHO) representative to the Philippines, said as the government invests in testing, the same investment should also be made when it comes to contact tracing.
“What we are advocating is that…as they invest in expanding testing capacity, to invest in actual contact tracing, identifying contacts, and quarantining and isolating them so that we prevent further transmission,” he said.
However, Abeyasinghe said this aspect of the country’s response needs “more strengthening” as it has not been able to keep up with the pace of the expansion of testing capacity.
As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, the Department of Health said there are 37,514 infections in the country, with 10,233 recoveries and 1,266 deaths.
