Cavite wants more coordinated COVID-19 contact tracing among LGUs

A contact tracing team of the City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (CESU) of the Quezon City government conducts house to house tracing of possible COVID-19 patients in Brgy. Baesa  INQUIRER/GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

MANILA, Philippines — Cavite Governor Jonvic Remulla on Friday called for a concerted contact tracing efforts among nearby provinces and cities, saying that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) knows no borders.

Remulla said  90 percent of COVID-19 cases in Cavite can be traced to Metro Manila.

“Some, they say ‘eh sa Cavite naman ‘yan eh, wag na dito, dito lang kami mag-aasikaso,’ but there are no borders in this pandemic. A hundred thousand everyday come in and out of Cavite and 90 percent of our cases originated in the NCR,” he said in an interview on  ABS-CBN News Channel.

(Some say that they should not care about the cases because it’s in Cavite, but there are no borders in this pandemic. A hundred thousand people go in and out of Cavite daily, and 90 percent of our cases originated in the NCR.)

“We try to share our contact tracing with them but they don’t share their contract tracing with us. So it should be a two-way street,” he stressed.

Remulla also said that the contact tracing reporting through the COVID Kaya system should also be nationalized and not just be a local matter.

COVID KAYA is a case and contact tracing reporting system provided by the DOH for epidemiology and surveillance officers, health care providers and laboratory-based users.

“When we report that, especially in Cavite, Rizal, Batangas, Laguna, who are the workforce in Metro Manila, it should be a concerted effort with one central authority tracing everyone,” said Remulla.

“Local governments don’t coordinate well with each other. It’s a ‘your problem is not my problem’ and it should be a shared problem for all of us,” he pointed out.

As of 3 p.m. Thursday, Cavite has already recorded a total of 4,044 COVID-19 cases with 40 new additional cases, according to the regional office of the Department of Health in Calabarzon.

Of this number, 3,122 are active, 844 are recoveries, and 78 are deaths.

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