COVID-19’s curve here flattened?

By Leonardo Micua 

 

IF you go by hard facts, the province of Pangasinan already flattened the curve, so to speak, in the fight against COVID-19 as early as March 18, the day—if you can recall–  when the province registered the last of its only nine coronavirus fatalities.

I found this out when I reviewed the COVID-19 Infographics regularly posted daily on social media by the Provincial Information Office, based on the data submitted by  the Provincial Health Office, which showed that while COVID-19 cases were still slightly rising then, no more COVID-19 death occurred in Pangasinan after March 18.

I consider this quite a rare feat because in other areas, such as the National Capital Region and the Visayas (particularly Cebu), the number of body bags continues to rise and in fact, they have now a problem on cremating the dead bodies.

If you will recall on March 18, there were already 30 COVID-19 patients who recovered from the disease and as days turn to a week and weeks into months, the number of recovered patients were still counting. Up to this writing, the number of COVID-19 patients who already recovered has now ballooned to 67 as of June 25.

These statistics even prompted many in our province to speculate that the coronavirus that hit our provincemates belongs to the less virulent type, allowing the patients, who are often asymptomatic, to easily recover after only few days of isolation and health care management.

This could be also true, I suppose, to the same virus that is now wreaking havoc in the National Capital Region and Cebu, the likely new epicenter of the coronavirus.

As this virus, I believe, is not the type that hit and already brought many deaths in the United States, some countries in Europe and South America, many are predicting that our woes might be over soon, probably by September or before the year ends.

But many still believe that the 67 people so far who recovered from COVID-19 owed so much from the enduring sacrifice made by our medical frontliners who have already devised an improved health care management protocol to their patients.

There are 10 other COVID-19 patients yet remaining in various hospital and isolation facilities in the province and judging from the previous cases and being asymptomatic too, they will also recover in due time.

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I was puzzled why the Dagupan POSO continues to disallow the few Bonuan jeepneys that were given special permit by the Land Transportation and Franchising and Regulatory Board during the Modified General Community Quarantine from unloading and loading their passengers in the Dagupan’s central business district at any time now.

This is because while POSO allows jeepneys from Calasiao, Lingayen and even Manaoag and other places similarly granted special permit by LTFRB to enter and pass through the downtown loop of Dagupan, it bans Bonuan jeepneys, numbering just five from doing the same to the consternation of commuters from the three Bonuan barangays.

As of this writing, the Bonuan jeepneys cannot go farther than the old Alimango Restaurant on Arellano Street, where they unload and load their passengers, numbering seven or nine at most per trip.  

Passengers from Bonuan going to downtown area have to line up for an hour or two, one  meter apart, while waiting for the downtown jeepneys, and which by the way come very rarely as there are only one or two units plying the route.  

Though the five jeepneys are wee below the actual needs of the population of Bonuan Gueset, Bonuan Boquig and Bonuan Binloc, they can at least help in alleviating the plight of the people just out of their quarantine.

Is Mayor Brian Lim discriminating the people of Bonuan by not allowing these five jeepneys to make their rounds of the downtown area which they used to do many long years before the pandemic?

You see, commuters from Bonuan cringe having to pay twice (instead of only once) out of their meager earnings only to reach the downtown area where they work.

Is Lim doing this just because the kapitan of the biggest barangay in Bonuan (Gueset) is Noel Bumanglag, who is the brother-in-law of former Mayor Belen Fernandez?  We don’t see the point why one has to play politics in this time of the pandemic when everybody else in Bonuan are suffering.   

If this is one of his strategies to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, then this is flawed as this is not a well- studied move being bereft of scientific basis.   

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