DAGUPAN CITY –– The number of persons under monitoring (PUM) for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Pangasinan has breached the 50,000 mark, most of them residing in Bayambang town, where Pangasinan’s first COVID fatality lived.
The monitoring report of the provincial government records 51,161 PUM or people who may have traveled to infected areas or may have been exposed to a COVID carrier, but 1,895 of them have completed their mandatory 14-day quarantine.
Twenty-eight patients are under investigation (PUI), one of whom died before the deceased’s test results were released. But 12 of the PUIs have been discharged from the hospital.
Because of the death of the COVID patient, Governor Amado Espino III directed the Provincial Health Office and the police to intensify contact-tracing of people the infected person met before his death. He also directed the total lockdown on all barangays, where the fatality’s contacts reside.
Bayambang enforced its total lockdown from midnight on March 21 to March 28. Neighboring town Basista also placed the whole municipality under strict quarantine.
According to a Bayambang advisory, residents of barangay Bical Norte, the home village of the COVID fatality, are not allowed to leave their houses. The entire barangay is being sanitized.