The Bacolod City Emergency Operations Center (EOC) is implementing a system similar to the South Cotabato COVID Contact Tracing System (SC-CCTS) to further intensify its contact tracing operations.
City Administrator and EOC executive director Em Ang, according to the press release from City Hall, said the adopted system will be called “Bacolod City COVID-19 Contact Tracing (BaC-Trac)” and will be implemented this week.
She said Bacolod is adopting the SC-CCTS as its online contact tracing system to record the movement of residents around Bacolod City and elsewhere in the province and to easily locate people suspected of having had contacts with COVID-19 patients.
“Early last month, while we were in the process of intensifying our contact tracing efforts, I came across an online article about the contact tracing system developed by South Cotabato. I shared the article with members of our data management cluster and they agreed that it is an easy, accessible and fool-proof system,” Ang said.
“We started linking with the people who designed and developed the app. Mayor Evelio Leonardia wasted no time and personally contacted South Cotabato Governor Reynaldo Tamayo Jr., who readily agreed to share the system with Bacolod,” she added.
The EOC Task Force invited Melody Joy Cosep of the Information and Communications Division of the South Cotabato Provincial Government’s for a virtual meeting Tuesday.
The next day 23 September 2020 Mike Sonza Galang, IT officer of South Cotabato provincial government, then conducted a technical orientation with the MITCS personnel, headed by OIC Ramon de los Reyes. He taught them on how to obtain the BaC-Trac card through online registration and how to install CCTS Logger for private and government establishments.
In a related development, the United Nations General Assembly had invited the SC-CCTS web developers to present before the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Leaders’ Summit Thursday 24 September 2020.
“Barring any delays, we plan to start using the SC-CCTS within the week. With this development, we hope to be able to gradually open our economy as we already have an effective tracking system in place,” Ang added.
Meanwhile, the Bacolod Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) has approved on third and final reading last Wednesday [Sept. 23] City Ordinance No. 941, authored by Councilor Lady Gles Pallen, that provides for the implementation of COVID-19 contact tracing system of Bacolod City
This ordinance shall cover all business establishments, government offices, residents, and visitors within the territorial jurisdiction of Bacolod City, to include public utilities and spaces, such as but not limited to, public markets, public terminals and public transport.
HOW IT WORKS
BaC-Trac is a localized web-based and mobile-based application developed for the efficient and expeditious contact tracing of confirmed COVID-19 positive patients initiated.
Bacolod residents will be issued a BaC-Trac card which bears the holder’s name, address, identification number and a uniquely-assigned Quick Response (QR) code through online registration.
Those who do not reside in 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 BaC-Trac visitor’s card.
The cards will serve as a digital logbook when entering government premises or private establishments for the purpose of recording the date and time of entry of visit through scanning of the QR code upon entry.
Meanwhile, business and government establishments are required to download the mobile application CCTS Logger on Google store to be able to scan BaC-Trac cards.
In case of failure of any government office or private establishment or public utility vehicle operator to register in the BaC-Trac within 15 days from the effectivity of the ordinance, scan all BaC-Trac Cards of clients or visitors, or maintain a manual logbook shall be sanctioned accordingly.*/CITY PIO
