Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte said the failure of the Department of Health (DOH) to provide complete information on all COVID-19 cases in the city is causing the delay in the city government’s contact tracing efforts.
“We appeal to your good office as Secretary of Health to set the vision and direction in improving data quality for rapid contact tracing,” Belmonte said in a letter addressed to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III.
Incomplete patient profiles “delay contact tracing by days and force front-liners to spend valuable time looking for the needed information from other possible sources,” she said.
Almost half of the 1,224 COVID-19 cases listed on Aug. 1 and 2 do not have addresses and contact numbers. As of Wednesday, the DOH recorded a total of 7,355 cases in Quezon City. —MARIEJO S. RAMOS