BAGUIO CITY – The City Council approved a resolution encouraging transparency from Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) patients in disclosing their names and identities to facilitate contact-tracing to prevent and potentially avert local and community transmission of the deadly virus that has already become a global pandemic.
The resolution authored by all members of the city legislative body states that between the greater good of the majority and personal identity, it is but a heroic and noble duty of a COVID-19 victim to relinquish self-preservation over the common good.
The resolution pointed out the global pandemic must be countered with innovative solutions to fastrack contact-tracing among the close contacts of confirmed patients to prevent and potentially avert local and eventual community transmission of the highly contagious illness.
City legislators claim one of the keys to the prevention and aversion of the deadly virus is transparency where COVID-19 positive patients may, on their own volition, issue a written undertaking that he or she is willing to have his or her name or identities be disclosed to the public to alert the community and be allowed to be broadcast to whom they had close contacts with for them to subsequently come out in the open and subject themselves to advised medical procedures to ensure that they are free from the virus.
According to the resolution, there have been numerus occasions when the names of COVID-19 positive cases were made known to the public, and where instead of denouncing the patients and their families, the great majority of the community have sympathized and positively responded when they publicly announced they went on self-quarantine.
The resolution adds that those who revealed they had interactions with the concerned persons, provided even more valuable information about probable persons under investigation (PUIs) and persons under monitoring (PUMs) whom they had encounters.
Health authorities expressed their gratitude to the COVID-19 patients who bravely came out in the open to divulge their names and other important information that guided the contact tracers to immediately get in touch with their close contacts who were provided with the appropriate advise for them to go on the required 14-day quarantine until such time they no longer possess symptoms of the deadly virus.
One of those who admitted publicly that he tested positive of COVID-19 was Joel Junsay, a 52-year old employee of the City Health Services Office (CHSO) who is the city’s first case of local transmission of the virus that paved the way for contract tracers to easily access his close contracts and subjected them to the required 14-day quarantine and for those with COVID-19 symptoms to undergo the required test with the accredited independent sub-national testing laboratory based at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC).
The approved resolution will be forwarded to concerned government agencies and future COVID-19 patients for their information and guidance considering the possible surge in COVID-19 cases in the city which might cause some problems for contact tracers in the future.
By Dexter A. See