MANILA, Philippines — Makati Mayor Abby Binay asked the national government on Tuesday to help them fight the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) by giving them more personnel to conduct contact tracing.
She made the request on Tuesday when she met National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr., the Cabinet member tasked to support the city in its COVID-19 response.
Binay said the city epidemiology and surveillance unit (Cesu) only had 35 contact tracers. “Unfortunately, when even one of them gets sick, all of that personnel’s close contacts need to be quarantined. Our Cesu operations will be crippled,” she added, noting that they were facing a backlog. Appeal to gov’t“We are hoping that the national government can provide us with manpower,” she said.
Esperon, for his part pushed the use of StaySafe.ph, the national government’s official contact-tracing app. But for the app to be effective, it must be used by around half of the population, or 50 million Filipinos. An Inquirer Business report in June said that according to app developer Multisys Technologies Corp., there were only around 1.1 million users.
As of Monday, Makati had recorded 2,878 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 139 deaths and 1,582 recoveries.