MANILA, Philippines — Health Secretary Francisco Duque III may not have been updated with the progress of the government’s contact tracing app, StaySafe, when he said it had “almost no impact,” an official of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said Thursday.
DILG Undersecretary Epimaco Densing said the government is continuously expanding the number of registered individuals on the app and it was used to scan individuals going to establishments for about 47 million times already.
Moreover, in July, Densing said the app was able to catch 150 individuals who tested positive for the coronavirus who tried to enter establishments.
“Dahil lumabas, nag-work yung ating StaySafe, hindi sila pinapasok sa establishments na ito. Ito ay isang pamamaraan para mapigilan ang potential na pagkalat nitong COVID-19,” he said in a televised public briefing.
(Because the app worked, those individuals were not allowed to enter establishments and this is one way of preventing further transmission of COVID-19.
Densing said the DILG is now instructing its informations technology (IT) group to give an alert whenever a COVID-19 patient is out and about and tries to enter establishments so that local government units will be informed and take action.
“Tatawagan namin ang lokal na gobyerno para masabihan na ang isang taong ito ay nag-iikot at dapat pigilan nila gumalaw at i-isolate at quarantine nila kaagad,” he said.
(We will inform the local government that this person is out and about and they should prevent the person and isolate them and place them under quarantine immediately.)
In a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Duque said the benefits of the StaySafe app have limitations and have “almost no impact.”