QC hires more contact tracers amid COVID-19 surge in NCR

The Quezon City government has hired 350 additional contact tracers amid the surge of COVID-19 cases, particularly in the National Capital Region (NCR).

In a statement, the Quezon City government said they hired the contact tracers under the emergency employment program of the Public Emergency and Services Office (PESO).

Also, it said that the new hires had been part of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) contact tracers program.

“The additional contact tracers were already part of our contact tracing army until December 31 of last year under contract with the DILG. But since we still need their services, especially during this surge, we hired them under our emergency employment program so as to continue the important task of contact tracing among many other responsibilities borne out of the rapid spread of Covid-19,” said Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte.

Further, 360 contact tracers from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) were renewed for an additional 30 days from January 17 to February 19.

According to QC Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance Unit (CESU) Head Dr. Rolando Cruz, Quezon City currently has more than 1,000 contact tracers conducting additional tasks including community case monitoring, data collecting, and encoding,  validating reported cases, assisting in vaccination and monitoring the implementation of minimum public health standards.

Quezon City on Thursday reported that their city now has 2,118,430 fully vaccinated individuals, including adults and minors, and those who got the single-dose of Janssen vaccine.

Meanwhile, 2,151,990 adult residents and workers already received the first dose of their vaccines.

A total of 220,732 minors --both with and without comorbidity -- have been vaccinated.

A total of 4,752,281 vaccine doses have been administered to Quezon City residents, the statement added. —LBG, GMA News