StaySafe app useless? DICT told to explain

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang wants the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to explain why the health department thinks that the StaySafe application had very limited effect on COVID-19 contact tracing efforts.

StaySafe was designed to unify the contact tracing efforts in the Philippines and was made mandatory by the national government last year.

Data collected through the application will be linked to the health department’s surveillance and contact tracing platform COVID Kaya or the COVID-19 document repository system.

However, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III told senators last Wednesday that the application almost had no impact on contact tracing.

“We will ask the DICT to explain why Secretary Duque made such a conclusion,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque said at a press briefing yesterday.

“In any event, that’s a cause for concern for the Palace because we know that automation is very important in contact tracing.”

Earlier this year, Baguio City mayor and contact tracing czar Benjamin Magalong described contract tracing as the “weakest link” in the government’s response to COVID-19.

The interior department, however, has claimed that the weakest link lies in prevention, citing the arrest of individuals who violated minimum health standards.

Last March, the interior department asked local governments to stop developing their own contact tracing systems and use Stay Safe instead.

Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) has countered claims by Secretary Duque that the government’s main contact tracing platform StaySafe.ph did not have an impact.

DILG Undersecretary Epimaco Densing said Duque might not have been updated with the statistics on the StaySafe.ph platform and how it helped government contact tracing efforts.

“As of today we have 6.4 million citizens registered in StaySafe,” he said in a virtual Laging Handa press briefing yesterday.

He noted that about 47 million scans have been made on the platform that were generated if they visited any public or private establishment.

Densing added that over a hundred individuals who were confirmed to be COVID-19 positive patients who tried to enter public establishments were flagged and not allowed to enter.

The DILG official said that they are continuously upgrading and expanding the platform to ensure that contact tracing efforts would be sustained.

Densing however said that statistics regarding isolation following contact tracing have not been good, as it takes 12 days before an infected person is isolated.

The DILG official said that there has been a noted shortage of quarantine facilities in some regions, particularly in Metro Manila, Central Luzon, Calabarzon and Region 7.

The DILG has tasked LGUs to expand their quarantine and isolation facilities to catch up with the rising COVID-19 cases.