EDITORIAL - Taking contact tracing lightly is risking public safety

For now, there is no trace yet of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 here in the Philippines. Because we want to keep it that way, authorities are carefully screening Filipinos returning from South Africa.

Seven Filipinos who recently arrived from there are now being sought. There were eight of them originally, but one of them was traced and cleared of any infection. Still, as a precaution, that passenger is now undergoing home quarantine.

The other seven? Authorities have difficulty tracing their whereabouts after they gave either wrong or false information in their contract tracing form.

“If they are caught, they will be charged because they should not provide incorrect information,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque III was quoted as saying.

It’s sad that after all that we have been through, and all that we have seen and experienced, some people are still not taking the situation seriously.

In a previous editorial we pointed out how some people not just ignored but also made a mockery of this serious process, sometimes putting ridiculous or totally fictional names or addresses in contact forms.

Contact tracing lists in malls saw notable visitors like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman and even cartoon characters like Spongebob Squarepants. Their addresses? Let’s just say many of them lived off-planet.

Aside from too few testing, weak contact tracing was another reason why it took us quite some time to bring COVID-19 to heel. Now it seems some of us are even sabotaging what little effort is going into contact tracing.

It only needs one person with the coronavirus to infect a room full of people. From there COVID-19 can be taken to the other places, like the office or even the home. We all know what happens next if that happens.

We are actually doing good when it comes to COVID-19 right now; the numbers and the positivity rates are going down and things are looking up. With all that is happening it is easy to lose our guard become careless.

But we are not out of the woods yet, and all we have worked so hard for can be lost just like that because some people either cannot be bothered to give their details or have a really twisted sense of humor.