AFTER TARGETED MASS TESTING

AFTER the first wave of targeted mass testing in various parts of Pangasinan, the number of COVID-19 cases in the province has ballooned to 71 with 12 more cases added to the 59 patients (17 of them active) recorded last June 5, according to the monitoring as of June 12, 2020 by the Provincial Health Office.

Twenty-nine cases are still considered active and are presently confined in various hospitals. Most if not all of them are asymptomatic of the virus. So far, 33 patients have recovered while the death toll remained nine persons to date.

Meanwhile, Mayor Brian Lim had announced in the afternoon of June 11 that the 14 frontliners of Dagupan City who earlier tested positive for COVID-19 on June 1 registered negative results in their latest Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests. 

The 14 who were confined at the Region 1 Medical Center (R1MC) and the Pangasinan Provincial Hospital were not yet included as among those who recovered from the disease in the provincial tally on June 12 as there was no report that they were already discharged from hospitals.

The latest monitoring showed that Western Pangasinan has already caught up with Dagupan City as the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic with 13 cases to date– four each from Sual and Agno, three from Alaminos City and one each from Mabini and Bani.

Dagupan has recorded 12 active COVID-19 cases, and one from San Fabian, all of whom were found positive in Risk-based RT-PCR tests among frontliners in Dagupan City while Sta. Maria town registered one case.     

Of the 12 fresh COVID-19 patients, the latest on June 11 is a 29-year-old policeman from Barangay Baldong, San Carlos City but is presently assigned in Sual who was confirmed positive in targeted RT-PCR test conducted by the Sual municipal government.

Another most recent case is a 52-year old male driver of Bani town who was found positive for COVID-19 in the RT-PCR test on June 8.

This prompted Mayor Gwen Palafox-Yamamoto to place Sitio Mangga, Barangay Ranao where the patient resides, on lockdown from 6:00 p.m. on June 8 to 6:00 p.m. on June 15.

Yamamoto earlier ordered a lockdown in Bani town from June 3 to June 9 when a town policeman from Sitio Sadsaran in Barangay Poblacion, Alaminos but assigned in Bani tested positive for coronavirus in mass testing on June 3.  

Meanwhile, the four new cases in Sual include three frontliners, a 39-year old female from Barangay Poblacion, a 23-year-old female from Barangay Sioasio, and a 45-year-old female from Barangay Paitan West; and a 22-year-old male also from Paitan West who came from the National Capital Region.

There was a report that the first COVID-19 patient of Sual, from Barangay Cabalitian, who is a 28-year-old male, again tested positive days after he was declared negative of the coronavirus and was released. However, this cannot be independently confirmed.

Meanwhile, the Municipal Inter-Agency Task Force of Agno, has placed the entire town under Extreme Enhanced Community Quarantine (EECQ) because four persons from the town, all of them are frontliners, were found positive for COVID-19 following their swab tests.

Agno town was under EECQ from June 8 to June 13. 

These include a 39-year-old ambulance driver from Barangay Poblacion East, and a member of the Agno Rescue Team from Barangay Bangan Oda.

The other two are both 53-years-old frontliners, both from Poblacion East. One of them is a jail officer and an ambulance driver.

The lone case in Mabini town is a 37-year-old male from Barangay Tagudin who tested positive on June 3. He was identified as a bodyguard of a town official. 

The 33 persons who have so far recovered from COVID-19 were from Dagupan City (9), Urdaneta City (4), Bayambang (3), Asingan (3), Malasiqui, Rosales (2), and Lingayen (2), and one each from Pozorrubio, Bugallon, Infanta, Sto. Tomas, Alaminos City, Binalonan, Laoac and Sual.    

The nine who died were from Bayambang, Rosales, Urbiztondo, Basista, Malasiqui, Lingayen, San Fabian, Dagupan City and Alaminos City.

According to Dr. Anna de Guzman, the provincial health officer, the first wave of mass testing involved more than 1,800 frontliners. (Leonardo Micua) 

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