Prevention, not contract tracing, weakest link in COVID response

FILE – 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 on Wednesday, July 15. The LGU hired 300 new contact tracers to assist in tracking down persons who are possibly exposed to the coronavirus. The team is accompanied by a plainclothes police officer. INQUIRER/GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

MANILA, Philippines — Prevention, not contact tracing, is the weakest link in the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said Thursday citing the number of people still violating health protocols.

This, despite Malacañang and the country’s tracing czar Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong having previously admitted that contact tracing is the “weakest” point in the government’s response against COVID-19.

“Kami po sa DILG have never believed na ang ating contact tracing is the weakest link. Actually, we disagree,” DILG spokesperson Jonathan Malaya said in a televised briefing.

(We, in the DILG, have never believed that contact tracing is the weakest link. Actually, we disagree.)

“Ang tingin ko po ang pinaka-weakest link natin is ang ating prevention. Kaya nga po tayo nanghuhuli ng mga kababayan nating hindi sumusunod sa mga minimum health standards dahil andon po maraming violations,” he added.

(I think the weakest link is prevention. This is why we continue to apprehend our countrymen who disobey minimum health standards because there are many violations.)

Malaya said that in terms of detection and contact tracing, the country is “in a good position.”

“In fact, yun pong mga bago nating contact tracers from DOLE [Department of Labor and Employment] na pinopondohan ng DOLE which is 5,754, karamihan po nito tapos na ang training at nakadeploy na sa mga iba’t ibang local government units,” he said.

This is on top of the 15,000 contact tracers hired by the DILG in January, of which 2,831 are deployed in Metro Manila, Malaya added.

/MUF