THE government had already hired 73,300 new contact tracers as of last month and is now in the process of hiring more to augment teams that have been formed to trace people infected or have been exposed to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Cabinet Secretary and Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) co-chairman Karlo Nograles on Wednesday said a report submitted by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to the task force in July indicated that it has already hired 73,306 contact tracers nationwide.
Nograles, during the weekly Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum, said more individuals will be hired under the government’s invigorated contact tracing effort once the Bayanihan 2 law, which provides the legislative base for the funding for the hiring and training of contact tracers, is signed into law.
Nograles said the DILG report showed that contact tracer teams had already tracked down 207,204 “close contacts,” of COVID-19 positive individuals. He said the close contacts have already been assessed by the government.
Nograles said apart from the contact tracers, the government is also hiring more health workers, especially nurses, for deployment to different hospitals and health facilities, especially in Metro Manila.
He said 6,510 health workers had already been hired to fill up 9,365 positions that were targeted for deployment in 339 hospitals and other healthcare facilities.
He said the government is actively recruiting and is set to fill up the 2,855 remaining positions.
President Duterte had said over the weekend that he intends to enlist medical reservists to beef up the workforce in health facilities and had also enjoined doctors and nurses to volunteer to augment those working at the forefront in the battle against COVID-19.
The country’s medical professionals on Saturday called for the reversion of Metro Manila and four nearby provinces to enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) as it warned of an overwhelmed health system and burnt out health workers.
The President on Sunday placed Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) from August 4 to 18.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the return of the MECQ, instead of ECQ, was a “compromise” as the country, particularly the economy, could not afford a complete lockdown. He said the government needed to find a balance between public health and livelihood.
Roque said the MECQ is part of the government’s recalibrated plans against COVID-19 which also includes massive targeted testing, where more frontliners are subject to PCR testing, including drivers of public utility vehicles, security guards, salesladies, receptionists, among others; and intensified contact tracing capability by hiring more contact tracers and tapping members of the Philippine National Police to augment the tracers.
Another salient point in the plan is the strengthening of the government’s isolation capacity through the construction of more isolation centers and tapping of more hotel rooms for use of individuals who are asymptomatic and with mild symptoms under “Oplan Kalinga;” the increasing of bed capacities, especially for ICU beds, in hospitals and construction or expansion of several hospitals especially in Metro Manila to accommodate more patients; and hiring additional health workforce.
Roque reiterated that the public should also do their share in the campaign against COVID-19 by strictly following the minimum public health standards like wearing masks and face shields, washing of hands, and keeping physical distance.
As this developed, Roque said the government is set to launch in Makati City on Thursday the pilot testing of the PCR pool test which aims to test more people at once and at a more affordable cost.
“The pilot, after initial steps have been approved by the Philippine Society of Pathologist, will finally start on the 6th or thereabouts, definitely within the first two weeks of August,” he said.
The pool testing aims to conduct swab tests on five to 10 people per group at one time. If the results came out positive each individual in the pool will undergo PCR test but if the results are negative they would all be considered clear of COVID-19.
Roque said that the pool test costs about P3,000 per kit or P300 per individual of 10.#
HOUSE-TO-HOUSE
The Department of Health (DOH) said it is now looking to find COVID-19 cases in communities by employing a house-to-house detection system.
In an interview, health undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said they are looking to employ a local government-led and people-centered response to COVID-19 by endeavoring to find all possible cases.
“We are adopting the Dharavi Model from Mumbai, where our teams will go house-to-house in priority barangays with clusters of infection to detect those with symptoms and (who have been) exposed, and to isolate and test them, if needed,” said Vergeire.
Based on their initial plans, she said they have already identified the “priority barangays” in Metro Manila and Calabarzon, where the house-to-house visits could be conducted in the next two weeks.
“This model will be adopted and we are going to start that in Metro Manila and Region 4-A, where different officials will be going down together with the local health officials, so that we will be able to identify symptomatic in the barangays, in the communities, and we will be able to isolate, we will be able to test,” said Vergeire in a separate interview over the ABS-CBN News Channel.
In an online media forum, the health official explained that the changes in the overall COVID-19 response includes adopting an “active case finding” system.
“We need to actively find the cases and eliminate clusters of infections. Active case finding means systematic screening and clinical evaluation of patients in the community,” said Vergeire.
“We will not wait for patients to come to the system, we will find them. Eliminating clusters means preventing starting points of local outbreaks,” she added.
In doing so, Vergeire said the imposition of localized lockdowns will be better managed and will help prevent the need for stricter large-scale community quarantines.
“We need more efficient ways for localized lockdowns so that we don’t have to go back to the ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) that we had before,” she said.
TESTING
The Philippines ranks first among countries that have conducted the most number of COVID-19 tests in Asia, with more than 30,000 tests being conducted daily, National Action Plan Against COVID-19 deputy chief implementer Vivencio Dizon said.
In a webinar organized by the GeiserMaclang group and Angkas, Dizon said data from the England-based research group “Our World in Data” showed that intensified mass testing in the country has led to an increase in its daily number of tests to more than 30,000, which is double to that of Japan’s 15,115 tests, and way higher than Indonesia’s 12,777 tests, South Korea’s 7,957 tests, and Malaysia’s 6,494 tests.
“We are now among the countries that test the most in Asia. We are double that of Japan already, in tests per day, and far outpacing the other countries in Asia. This shows us that if we work together–and the private sector was instrumental in helping us, we were able to beef up our testing capacity to the levels that we see today,” Dizon said.
Dizon said the country had done a total of 35,000 tests on July 25, surpassing its goal of 30,000 tests per day by the end of July.
He said the country has already done 1.616 million tests performed as of August 3 and intends to reach 10 million by next year.
The Philippines has 99 RT-PCR laboratories to process the thousands of tests daily and yield results within 48 hours to 72 hours. — WIth Gerard Naval
