Contact tracing in San Juan ‘fast,’ thanks to P3k cash aid for virus patients
MANILA, Philippines — The cash incentive offered for COVID-19 patients, who would volunteer to stay in isolation facilities, has speeded up contact tracing efforts in San Juan, the city government said on Wednesday.
In an interview with ANC, San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora said their financial aid worth P3,000 for coronavirus disease patients would reduce the transmission of the virus among their family members at home.
“Basically, this incentive is to make them transfer to our quarantine facilities so that we can extract them from our communities so that they will not infect others including their family members… The contact tracing becomes very fast because they really cooperate in the (contact) tracing process,” Zamora said.
Coronavirus disease patients in the city were willing to give information about their close contacts and whereabouts because of the incentive, Zamora also noted.
Aside from cash incentives, patients also received free food and free treatment. Only patients with no symptoms and mild symptoms are being treated in quarantine facilities while critical cases are being sent to hospitals.
Zamora said quarantine facilities in the city “have never been 100-percent full.” Isolation facilities in the city are Kalinga Center, San Juan Medical Center and San Juan National High School.As of Aug. 11, San Juan logged a total of 1,242 confirmed cases of COVID-19. This includes 825 recoveries and 54 deaths. [ac]
