ILOILO City – The city government’s coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) contact tracing scheme using quick response (QR) codes is not pushing through this December. Its full implementation was moved to January next year, according to Information Technology Division head and Executive Assistant Francis Cruz.
The deferment, said Cruz, would give the public more time to register and obtain their QR codes required for entry into establishments or offices.
Days before the QR code system’s supposed implementation, servers of the Uswag Tracer website crashed due to the overwhelming number of residents attempting to register.
During the first five hours after its launch, the website received around 23,000 requests.
This forced the city government to suspend the registration while processing the validation of those who were able to register first.
So far, around 40,000 were able to register.
According to Cruz, registration is expected to resume in mid-December.
This time, they will be tapping barangay officials to help their respective constituents register and get their QR codes.
“Pa–rehistro sila sa ila respective barangays then submit nila sa amon. I-process namon by batch,” said Cruz.
This new contract tracing system is replacing the manual contact tracing forms, wherein people take turn using a pen to fill them out – a potential transmitter of COVID-19.
Individuals six years old and above who are residents, working or visiting this city are mandated to secure QR codes – the black, machine-readable code consisting of an array of black and white squares, typically used for storing URLs or other information for reading by the camera on a smartphone.
Initially, for a month already, the system is being implemented at city hall and the city’s district offices. So far, only city government employees have QR codes in their IDs.
According to Jeck Conlu, Iloilo City COVID-19 Team spokesperson, all establishments have to assign a staff to scan QR codes of individuals entering their premises.
Why are QR codes necessary?
QR codes allow businesses to keep track of everyone who has been through their doors.
If someone contracts coronavirus, they can then tell any establishment they have been into recently, and that establishment can contact others who were there around the same time.
These people can then take COVID-19 tests and self-isolate until they receive their test results.
QR codes will become even more important when a mobile application is rolled out to the general public, as the application will be able to automatically alert anyone who has been near someone who gets the virus, for example in a restaurant.
The city government will also be alerted for appropriate action.
Through this, Cruz said individuals who are supposed to be on quarantine will be prevented from going out. A three-level security is in place for data that will be encoded by the registrant./PN
