ONLY 187 NEW CASES

AS COVID-19 cases continue an upward spiral in Manila, sparking suspicion it could have been sparked by stronger variants of the coronavirus, it is the exact opposite in Pangasinan where the cases are on a continuous downturn at a time even when the roll out of the vaccine among frontliners has barely started.

Records of the Provincial Health Office showed there are now only 187 cases reported in the province, 182 from the province’s component towns and cities and only five from Dagupan, an independent component city of Pangasinan.

Since Dagupan City has only five active cases in isolation as of March 11, it was removed from the list of LGUs under COVID-19 watchlist of the Department of Health and the PHO.

The 187 remaining cases are spread in 41 of the 48 towns and cities of Pangasinan with just seven municipalities listed as having no COVID-19 cases: Balungao, Bayambang, Infanta, Labrador, Mabini, Rosales and Sison.

Lingayen now tops in the number of COVID-19 cases with 20, followed by Malasiqui (14), Urdaneta City  (11), San Manuel (10) and Binmaley (9).

Officials said that Pangasinan is lucky that no variant of the coronavirus has been detected to have entered the province to date.

But there are serious apprehensions that the more infectious type of the virus may be able to sneak in because of the continuous arrival of tourists on account of the easing of restrictions in the province’s southern borders since implementation of the uniform protocol issued by Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID).

The arrival of tourists, many of them from Manila, are already allowed to enter Pangasinan even without a travel clearance and medical certificate that shows negative e result of RT- PCR test.

Records showed that on March 11, only 15 new confirmed cases were recorded, all of which are from Pangasinan’s component towns and cities. The number was, howe3er, offset by 12 new recoveries, 11 from Pangasinan and one from Dagupan.

The total number of confirmed cases is 5,145; 3,717 have recovered and 241 had died.

Because of the continuous spike of cases in Metro Manila, there were proposals to the provincial IATF led by Governor Amado Espino III to reimpose restrictions on all borders and demand visitors the presentation of travel permit, medical certificate and negative result of COVID-19 test. (Leonardo Micua)

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