QCOSTARICA – The country registered a new record of covid-19 infections this Wednesday, reaching 3,173 confirmed cases in a period of 24 hours.
The figure exceeds the 2,781 cases reported on April 29, the day on which the highest number of those affected by the virus had been confirmed since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
According to information from the Ministry of Health, again the number of deaths from causes associated with covid-19 was 26 in a single day.
For this Wednesday, there are 1,320 people hospitalized because of the virus, of them 487 are in intensive care with ages between 17 and 86 years.
Waiting list in the ICU of San Jose hospitals drops to 36 patients
This morning, according to the report from the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS), 36 patients with covid-19 from regional hospitals were waiting for an Intensive Care bed to be released to be transferred to San Jose medical centers.
In total, according to Health data, the number of confirmed cases since March 2020, when the health crisis began, reached 276,887; 55,721 of these are currently active.
On May 9, the Central American Population Center reported that the reproduction rate or “R” rate of the virus dropped to 1.09 infections for each infected person, however, the estimate was that the hospital crisis would worsen even more before the rate dropped to 1.
The ideal is to be below 1, since it implies that the new infections on are the decrease.
Projections
Since the beginning of the week there have been projections of what the next couple of weeks could be like in Costa Rica, from an optimistic scenario, that the maximum of new cases would arrive on May 20.
Another scenario described as “more realistic or neutral” projected that the R = 1 rate would be reached within a month, which implies a slower deceleration in infections.
According to this estimate, a maximum peak of the curve of 2,800 daily cases would be reached on average for the first week of June.
The pessimistic scenario projects more than 3,500 daily cases if the country takes a month and a half to drop the contagion rate to 1.
What is of concern to Health are the growing number of hospitalizations, way beyond the capacity of the Caja.
An optimistic projection is that as the number of daily cases decreases, so will the demand on hospital services.
However, before that can happen, a pessimistic view if that hospitalizations may double from that 1,320 today to 3,000, with more than 1,000 in intensive care.
Meanwhile, a technical panel made up of experts from the Fund, Health and the Emergency Commission is working on a series of proposals to try to alleviate the hospital crisis.
Since last week, the head of the CCSS, Román Macaya, warned that the situation already prevents, in some cases, providing care to patients who require the most critical care because there are no beds available.
The director of Management and Risk of the National Emergency Commission (CNE), Sigifredo Pérez, reported on Tuesday that the majority of new infections are concentrating in three provincial capitals of San José, Alajuela and Cartago.
