Facebook, Social Media Platforms Suggested For Contact Tracing
FACEBOOK FOR CONTACT TRACING? – A lawmaker suggested to the Department of Health that social media sites such as Facebook should be used for contact tracing COVID-19 patients.
Following reports of using “chismis” as a means to assist contact tracing, Anakalusugan Partylist Rep. Mike Defensor recently suggested the use of social media. Meanwhile, according to Defensor, the Philippines had “miserably failed” in its contact tracing efforts.
According to an article from Inquirer, Defensor stated:
“We should utilize social media in terms of reporting and contact tracing, where we have miserably failed. I have friends who tested positive for the infectious virus and none of them has been asked who they had interacted with“
Furthermore, Defensor explained that there are over 75 million Facebook users in the Philippines. With this in mind, Defensor argued that the social media platform could be used as an effective means of finding those who had come in close contact with an infected patient.
Along with this, the lawmaker doubled down on his statements and said that even in poor areas, most people are still on Facebook, had phones, and are active on social media. As per the article, Defensor also urged families who tested positive for the virus and are under home quarantine to not go out to the public for 14 days.
Afterward, he cited that the country’s health system was close to collapsing when the medical community pleaded to the President for a “time out”.
Currently, there are over 119,460 cases of COVID-19 reported in the Philippines. Of that number, at least 2,150 have died due to the disease. Meanwhile, because of the changes in DOH’s system of recording recovered patients, the number of recoveries had ballooned to 66,837.
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