The Quezon City government is intensifying its contract tracing capability with 1,300 more contact tracers from the Department of Labor and Employment.
With the new hires, the city government now has over 2,600 contact tracers who will be interviewing COVID-19 patients to gather data on their close contacts and travel history as well as to conduct health assessments.
“We are very thankful to the Department of Labor and Employment for deploying more contact tracers. We really need this since we are the biggest locality in the National Capital Region,” Mayor Joy Belmonte said.
“The key is to have more contract tracers so we could help prevent the spread of the virus in our communities. We downplay the importance of lockdown if we do not have the fast response of the contact tracing army in our city,” she added.
A total of 1,347 contact tracers hired through DOLE’s Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/ Displaced Workers (TUPAD) program participated in the orientation conducted by the QC Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit.