What was originally planned as a contact tracing methodology for Baguio when this city recorded the first batch of Covid-19 cases in March has become a template for the country’s contact tracing strategy that caught the attention of the World Health Organization.
With his vast experience in enhanced cognitive interviewing that made him former chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong has emphasized on the importance of a no-nonsense contact tracing to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in the Summer Capital.
At the time when Covid-19 cases have hit other urban areas in the country especially the National Capital Region, only those from the medical community have first-hand information on the possible contacts of laboratory confirmed Covid-19 patients, hence contact tracing job is limited to people in the medical field.
But Baguio is one step ahead in contact tra-cing, courtesy of the nine pioneer members of the city’s contact tracing team with Magalong as the overall head. While other local government units struggle in identifying most of the contacts of Covid-19 patients, the city is rounding up almost 80 to 90 percent of the contacts of patients while strictly implementing a localized lockdown of barangays where the patients reside to allow the contact tracers perform their jobs efficiently.
Members of the elite Baguio contact tracing team, who are not only from the medical field but also experts in various fields use a system that employs a multi-pronged approach: detection, isolation, testing, and tracing. Apart from computer-aided data collection system and link ana-lysis, the team also integrates patient identity disclosure to maximize gathering of contact information and facilitate quarantine, testing, disinfection, and medical protocols.
Even before his appointment as the country’s Covid-19 contact tracing czar, Magalong has personally handpicked Lt/Col. Maximo Sumeg-ang, Jr. to be one of the team leaders of the contact tracing teams being a seasoned police intelligence and investigation officer.
Magalong and Sumeg-ang, along with the other pioneer members of the contact tracing team to include Philip Puzon, the mayor’s chief of staff, have been making the rounds in the country to empower the contact tracing teams of various provincial and municipal LGUs.
The city’s contact tracing team has reached out to various local government units from Ilocos Norte to Zamboanga to share the city’s best practice called “contact tracing ecosystem”, which is the collaboration of all stakeholders from the police, medical field, tacticians, barangay health workers, and other personnel knowledgeable in technical support.
Aside from getting praises from WHO Asia Pacific representatives, the city’s contract tracing methodology introduced in Baguio has been labeled a “game changer” in defeating Covid-19 in the local fronts, according to Interior and Local Government Sec. Eduardo Año.
Forming contract tracing ecosystem for every LGU
The Baguio experience has paved the way for the surge in number of contact tracing teams in the country with the DILG reporting in August there are around 7,000 contact tracing teams with 85,000 members nationwide.
But Magalong remains unconvinced with the current number of contact tracing teams, saying the ideal or sufficient number of contact tracers should be at least 135,000 reason why the DILG reported the need to hire at least 50,000 more to meet the WHO recommended ration of one contact tracer for every 800 people.
The mayor likewise said ensuring the welfare of contact tracers is paramount in the government’s bid to arrest the increasing Covid-19 cases in the city.
With Baguio’s model contact tracing methodology, LGUs reached out by Magalong and his team has established their own contact tracing ecosystem with members who are experts in cognitive interviewing, medical field, data analysis, encoding, decontamination, swabbing, and technical support with the help of the barangay health response emergency teams.
Baguio City Police Office personnel Mischelle Junio, one of the pioneer members of the contact tracing team as a data analyst, shared to be exposed with positive, suspected, or probable Covid-19 patients is one of the most crucial challenges every member of the contact tracing team faced.
Months earlier, Junio tested positive for Covid-19, as she caught the infection while performing her tasks, both as a police personnel and member of the contact tracing team.
“As a member of the contact tracing team, we do not have the luxury of time to sleep due to the need to trace the contacts of positive patients. Dealing with patients and people with different personalities and behaviors in handling positive results are also the challenges we encounter as we perform our tasks,” Junio said, as she also acknowledged the other pioneer members of the city contact tracing team namely Dr. Donnabel Panes, Shan-ry Roberts, Jefferson Damoslog, Francis Camarao, and Jomar Tampoc.
The LGUs, in their bid to have an efficient response against the Covid-19 infection, must also empower members of their respective contact tracing teams, Junio said, as she noted that members of the contact tracing teams of other LGUs have problems on logistics such as personal protective equipment, service vehicle, and mobile data allowance, which also affect their performance.
Sumeg-ang, for his part, shared that some of the LGUs have no clear picture of the real situation on the ground reason why the city’s contact tracing team has to help in assessing the situation through data submitted by the LGU.
“That’s why mayor Magalong keeps on emphasizing in his lectures the importance of the active participation of the local chief executives in the contact tracing ecosystem since he can command concerned offices and other stakeholders. This leads to better testing capability and collaboration among key individuals who are in the frontline against the Covid-19 pandemic in the communities,” Sumeg-ang said.
