The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) is eyeing to finally start the hiring of contact tracers next month.
In an online news briefing on Thursday, Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the DILG will initially hire 50,000 contact tracers to help in locating and identifying people who may have interacted with people who are positive for the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
Last month the Department of Health (DOH) said it is already finalizing the guidelines for the contact tracers to be hired by the government.
It said the government will be hiring 95,000 people to complement its existing 38,000 contact tracers.
Contact tracers are expected to play a bigger role once more local government units start implementing the zoning scheme to isolate areas within their jurisdiction with high incidents of Covid-19 cases.
Under the said scheme, areas that have more than 20 cases will classified as critical zone and will be placed under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).
Locations around critical zones with 1 to 19 Covid cases will be considered containment zones where a modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) will be implemented, while areas without cases but contiguous with containment zones will be classified as buffer zones where a general community quarantine (GCQ) would be enforced.
Areas outside the buffer zone without confirmed cases will implement a modified general community quarantine (MGCQ).