Mayor Benjamin Magalong said a new lockdown rule prohibiting even the workers from going in and out of barangays undergoing contact tracing for a maximum of 48 hours is necessary to limit the movement of people who might have come in contact with the confirmed Covid-19 and interrupt transmission of the virus.
“Please understand and allow us to do our work. Contact tracing is a crucial component of our fight against Covid-19 and your cooperation is a must,” the mayor appealed.
The mayor last issued a memorandum on July 30 that spells out the lockdown procedures for contact tracing, which included a 48-hour time-out within which contact tracing teams accomplish their job and eventually determine the extent of the lockdown.
During the period, only the following will be allowed movement: barangay officials, health care and social workers, uniformed personnel, emergency response service providers, cargo and logistics services, government workers with essential functions, persons authorized by the barangays to procure essential needs, workers in utilities like water, electricity, telecommunications and waste management, and members of the media.
The 48-hour time frame allows contact tracing teams to complete their mission of tracking down contacts of positive patients and allowing people including workers to go in and out while it is being undertaken would defeat the purpose.
Within 48 hours and in most cases even less, the teams interview the patient, cull information on his/her whereabouts, identify and classify those he/she had been with, track and inform the contacts, facilitate testing isolation and quarantine protocols, and expedite the analytics using the computerized contact tracing tool to identify further links of the patients.
Once they have a full grasp of the situation, the teams can recommend whether to expand or limit the coverage of the lockdown to a certain area.
Lifting of lockdown orders will only be done upon the recommendation of the teams after ensuring that all contact tracing activities have been completed, the mayor said. – Aileen P. Refuerzo
May 2, 2024
