While COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila are decreasing, the contact tracing capacity of the Quezon City government has increased to 31.2 contacts traced per positive individual.

This new contact tracing capacity identified for the week of October 16 to 22 is double the capacity during the week of October 2 to 9 which is 14.94.

Mayor Joy Belmonte highlights this improvement as part of the city government’s strategy in the continuous bout against COVID-19.

“This is very important to us because even though we are focused on vaccinating our population now, early detection of cases is still a vital step in mitigating the spread of the disease,” Mayor Belmonte said.

Previously, the city government had detected clustering of cases in closed and long-term facilities, convents, orphanages, and other establishments. Immediately, the Quezon City Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance Unit (QCESU) conducted tracing on all possible individuals who had been in contact with positive individuals.

“Contact tracing czar and Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong said that 37 contacts per 1 positive is the ideal ratio and we are now closer to that ratio because of all the interventions that we are doing to improve contact tracing,” Mayor Belmonte added.

“Contact tracing is one of our key strategies in this fight against COVID-19. Without proper tracing, positive cases will just and multiply rapidly in different communities. But what we have in Quezon City is a strong arm of contract tracers – both manpower and digital-based,” Dr. Rolly Cruz, Head of QCESU.

The city government has around 3500 contact tracers through the help of the Department of Interior and Local Government and the Department of Labor and Employment. More than 42,000 establishments are also using KyusiPass, the city’s contact tracing app which helps boost the contact tracing efforts. The city government also partnered with the UP Pandemic Response Team to implement an end-to-end MedAlert COVID Testing and Contact Tracing Platform.

The COVID-19 situation in Quezon City is also improving, according to the OCTA Research Group.

Based on their latest report, the average number of new cases per day for the week of October 19 to 25 is now at 206. Cases in the past three weeks have been steadily decreasing. The reproduction number for the same period is .46 while the positivity rate is now at 7%. The average daily attack rate (ADAR) per 100,000 is now at 6.47.

Relatively, OCTA classified Quezon City as low-risk in reproduction number, hospital occupancy rate and moderate risk on ADAR and positivity rate.

Dr. Guido David of OCTA explained that Quezon City is continuously improving and hopefully becomes even safer before December.

Meanwhile, As of October 27, the city has officially reached 100.20% of its 1.7 million target population to achieve population protection. The total number of fully vaccinated individuals in Quezon City is now 1, 703, 329 while those who are partially vaccinated is at 1, 832, 300 (107.78%).

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