Baguio mayor holds contact-tracing gab for CL cops, medics

By Mar T. Supnad

CAMP OLIVAS, Pampanga- Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong and his team held here Tuesday a seminar on contact-tracing here at the regional police office and mitigate effects of Covid-19 menace.

Magalong, who is chief of National Task Force on Contact Tracing said the seminar aimed to train government health workers and police tasked to trace contacts of Covid-19 cases in the region.

Contact tracing team members are health care workers such as doctors and nurses who determine level of risk of virus transmission while police are tapped for cognitive skills. 

Magalong said it is better to have many contact tracing teams because there are cases when first level contacts of Covid-19 cases can reach as high as a hundred people.

Meanwhile, National Task Force on COVID-19 chief Carlito G. Galvez Jr. who was also present during the activity highlighted the crucial role of barangay health emergency response teams in the nation's fight against the disease since BHERTs strengthen the country's contact tracing capability under the “prevent-detect-isolate-treat-reintegrate” strategy of the national action plan (NAP) against Covid-19. 

"As frontliners and one of the agencies tapped to fight Covid-19,  we need this kind of training for us to be equipped in this main public health intervention for COVID-19 response," PRO3 regional director Brig Gen. Rhodel O Sermonia added.

 Baguio City’s contact tracing e-system, a partnership between health workers and law enforcement officers, is considered one of best practices of local government units in containing the spread of the deadly disease.

 Also present during the seminar were deputy chief implementer Vince Dizon, Department of the Interior and Local Government Undersecretary Martin Dino and Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Assistant Secretary Wilben Mayor.