Personnel of the Department of Health Region 3 interview Baler residents for the mass RT-PCR testing on May 28. (Photo from the Municipal Government of Baler)
MABALACAT CITY, Pampanga –– The provincial government of Aurora recorded 232 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday (June 2), the highest number since the start of the pandemic last year.
In its latest bulletin, the Aurora Emergency Operations Center also registered new deaths – a resident of Baler town and another from San Luis town.
The capital town of Baler has the highest number of new cases at 65, followed by Dingalan 56, San Luis 45, Dinalungan 30, Maria Aurora 15, Dipaculao 11, and Casiguran 10. The northernmost town of Dilasag had zero new cases.
As of June 2, Aurora has 1,288 COVID-19 cases, of which 433 remain active while 810 have recovered from the disease.
The province has registered 45 death cases.
The extraordinary rise in the number of new cases was attributed to the recent conduct of “aggressive community testing off-site operations,” in which local government personnel and family members of COVID-19 patients in the eight towns were subjected to reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests.
COVID-19 testing czar Vivencio Dizon sent a medical team to Aurora over the weekend for the conduct of the mass testing upon the request of Gov. Gerardo Noveras. He said cases had continued to rise in the province since last March.
Of the 2,741 individuals tested, 1,162 came out negative, and 252 turned out to be positive of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, on June 1.
The province is still waiting for the test results of 1,327 persons.