Quezon City asks DILG to deploy more contact tracers to meet ideal ratio

MANILA, Philippines — Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte has asked the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to deploy additional contact tracers in the city so that it would be able to achieve the ideal ratio of one COVID-19 case to 37 contacts.

Belmonte said the local government was previously able to achieve the ideal contact tracing ratio, especially when DILG deployed over 1,500 contact tracers in the city.

However, when 1,000 of the DILG’s contact tracers ended their contracts, only 500 were left with the city, which was augmented by 500 of the city’s own contact tracers.

At present, the city has about 1,065 contact tracers; with this, they were only able to achieve the 1:8 ratio.

“Siguro dagdagan ng DILG ng 2,000 o kaya ng 3,000 [contact tracers] para umabot kami sa criteria para masabing compliant kami sa kanilang napakamahigpit na criteria for effective LGU contact tracing,” she said in a press briefing.

(Maybe the DILG could add 2,000 or 3,000 contact tracers so we could achieve the criteria.)

“Nabawasan ‘yung contact tracing namin noong natanggal o nawala ‘yung 1,000 na contact tracers na binigay ng DILG, nagkaroon talaga ng malaking epekto,” she added.

(Our contact tracing capability decreased when the 1,000 contact tracers deployed by the DILG were gone, it created a big impact.)

She said, however, they are currently waiting for supplementary contact tracers to be sent by DILG as well as the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, but that they did not specify how many will arrive.

As to the city government’s capability to hire its own contact tracers, Belmonte said they are in the process of balancing priorities in its COVID-19 response.

“Marami tayong binabalanseng gastusin dito but of course if this is on the table, kung ni-request na kailangan na kailangan talaga dagdagan then this, by all means, will be on the table for discussion,” she said.

(We are balancing many expenses here but if it is on the table and we were told that we would need to augment it, it will be on the table for discussion.)

“It’s really just a matter of prioritizing,” Belmonte added.