About 200,000 residents and 5,000 business establishments here have registered in the Bacolod City coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) Contact Tracing (BaCTrac) System.
As part of the city’s strengthened efforts to contain Covid-19 infections, registration is required under City Ordinance (CO) 941, “An Ordinance Implementing the Covid-19 Contact Tracing in the City of Bacolod”.
Mayor Evelio Leonardia said Friday Bacolod could be the first locality in the Visayas to use the application, which the city has adopted from the South Cotabato Covid Contact Tracing System (SC-CCTS).
“We were able to connect with Governor Jun (Reynaldo) Tamayo Jr. who was so gracious in allowing us to use the app. It is an innovation that has contributed and will contribute substantially to our efforts in contact tracing,” Leonardia said in a virtual interview with Assistant Secretary Jonji Gonzales of the Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas.
The mayor discussed the BaCTrac system as among the interventions being implemented by the Bacolod City Emergency Operations Center (EOC), which he heads as task force chief, and is being supervised by retired Maj. Gen. Melquiades Feliciano, chief implementer of the Inter-Agency Task Force – Visayas.
BaCTrac is an innovation being optimized by the EOC for the efficient and expeditious tracing of contacts of confirmed Covid-19-positive patients.
Once registered in the system, an individual will be issued a BaCTrac card, which features the holder’s name, address, identification number, and a uniquely-assigned quick response (QR) code.
Through the online contact tracing system, the city government can record the movement of residents around the city and elsewhere in the province and easily locate people suspected of interacting with Covid-19 patients.
When a person enters a government building or a shopping mall, the QR code from his or her card will be scanned.
The cards will serve as a digital logbook to record the date and time of entry of visit.
Individuals who are not residents of Bacolod and may have temporary personal or business transactions in the city, or who may have to report for work daily will be issued a BaCTrac visitor’s card.
Business and government establishments are required to download the mobile application CCTS Logger on Google store to be able to scan BaC-Trac cards.
As of Thursday night, Bacolod has 521 active cases, 3,854 recoveries, and 116 deaths.
(Nanette Guadalquiver via Negros Daily Bulletin, photo by Bacolod City – Provincial Information Office)