Tacloban goes hi-tech against coronavirus
This is an efficient way in conducting contact tracing if somebody gets tested positive of COVID
TACLOBAN CITY — The city government has started implementing a system that requires individuals entering an establishment to submit to a Quick Response (QR) code scanning before being allowed an entry to facilitate an efficient contact tracing in case a person tests positive of coronavirus disease.
The system, called Digital COVID-19 Surveillance activities, Contact tracing, Analysis and Networking (SCAN System), requires permanent and temporary residents, transients and tourists to get a QR code either online at the city’s website or through their respective barangays.
The QR code, which works like the barcode of goods in a supermarket, contains the name, address and contact details of the person bearing it. When a person enters a business establishment or a government office, he will be required to tap the QR code at the entrance.
Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez said this technology is already being practiced in other countries.
“This is an efficient way in conducting contact tracing if somebody gets tested positive of COVID,” he said.
Romualdez said this will serve as protection for everybody especially that, being the center of business and governance in the region, many people from other provinces and nearby municipalities come to the city every day for different transactions.
“It starts with one or two COVID cases, and if it spreads out then we will have a problem,” he said. “We are not the richest city in the region, and we cannot afford to keep on making mistakes.”
Romualdez said it is mandatory for all business establishments and government agencies to have the system installed, which will be directly linked to a command center.
Failure to comply will be dealt with a penalty. “We can close one establishment for failure to comply because it can affect the whole city,” he said.
Randy Calahi, head of city’s Management Information System Development, said once a person under monitoring or a patient under monitoring for suspected COVID-19 enters an establishment, the system will sound off an alarm and will likewise alert the command center, which in turn, will immediately send a team from the Tacloban City Rescue Unit to pick the person and bring him to a quarantine facility.
Calahi said the command center gets regular updates on COVID cases, suspected patients and a whole list and status of returning overseas Filipinos and locally stranded individuals to the region.
When a person is tested positive of COVID-19, the system will track all the places that the patient visited prior to the testing and alert the people who were present in the establishment at the said time so that they can quarantine themselves and take precautionary measures.