The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) said it has enough number of contact tracers in Metro Manila as COVID-19 cases rose to a record high of 7,103 on Friday.

In a radio interview, DILG Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said it is looking into the possible deployment of contact tracers from other regions if COVID-19 cases in the National Capital Region (NCR) will continue rising.

"You have to adjust to the situation so we are thinking of deploying the other contact tracers from the other regions we might deploy them in Metro Manila if the trend continues but considering our existing active cases, our contact tracers for NCR are still enough for now," he said.

Malaya said with the alarming increase of COVID-19 cases, the DILG has intensified contact tracing especially in NCR.

"We strengthened our contact tracing now because of the increasing number of COVID-19 cases. Yesterday, it reached to 7,0000. It is alarming so DILG assigned additional contact tracers in Metro Manila," he said.

"We have deployed 2,400 from the DILG-hired contact tracers and for our surge we...have physically deployed more than 300 policeman, it means they will go to the LGU's and join the contact tracing teams," he added.

Malaya said the PNP also has "remote contact tracing where we asked for 20 policemen from different regions and each regional police office is assigned to one LGU here in Metro Manila. They can do calls, follow ups and monitoring even remotely while they are in their provinces."

Malaya said from the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), the DILG also asked for 100 contact tracers.

''Sixty will be deployed in Quezon City, 40 in Pasay. So what we do is we increased our personnel to intensify the contact tracing program of the government," he said. Robina Asido/DMS