The Pangasinan Provincial Health Office (PHO) has confirmed that the 11 coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) Delta variant cases in the province have recovered.
In a phone interview with the Philippine News Agency on Tuesday, PHO chief Dr. Anna Ma. Teresa de Guzman said out of the 11 recovered patients, six were cases of local transmission.
“They are residents of the province. Some might have acquired it from going in and out of the province as they are authorized persons outside of residence or they might have had interaction with visitors from outside of the province,” she said.
She added the close contacts of the Delta variant recovered patients remained under quarantine.
However, de Guzman said the PHO has yet to confirm the five to seven new Delta variant cases in Pangasinan as of Sept. 7.
Meanwhile, the provincial government is implementing measures to curb the surge of Covid-19 cases amid the local transmission of the Delta variant.
De Guzman said they have requested granular lockdowns in areas with a high number of cases while some local government units (LGUs) under critical zones have raised their quarantine status.
She said the province’s request to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) to shift to general community quarantine (GCQ) with heightened restrictions was approved and announced on Monday.
“There are 28 out of the 47 LGUs (Dagupan City not included as it is chartered city) that are under the critical zone. They have a clustering of cases and 25 percent of their barangays are affected with clustering of cases,” she added.
De Leon clarified that although not all of these LGUs have raised their quarantine status, the shift to GCQ with heightened restrictions of the province will suffice.
Prior to the approval of IATF-EID of the province’s request, Governor Amado Espino III mandated the LGUs to enforce emergency measures to curb the spike of Covid-19 cases.
The provincial government has also hired more doctors and nurses to augment the manpower of the 14 hospitals and other facilities run by the provincial government.
As of Sept. 6, Pangasinan recorded 17,690 recoveries out of the 21,653 confirmed Covid-19 cases with 812 deaths and 3,151 active cases.
Source: Philippines News Agency
