RICO’S COVID DIGEST – Costa Rica broke a new record, the third this month, for the number of daily cases of covid-19 on Wednesday: 6,525.
If taken from another point of view, in the 24 hours between Tuesday and Wednesday, there were, on average, 272 people infected every hour or 5 per minute.
According to the report by the Ministry of Health, as of Wednesday, the total number of infections was 668,209, of which 572,102 (86%) people have recovered, a total of 88,602 (13%) people remain with an active infection.
If you will recall, a little over a month ago, on December 21, 2021, before the Omicron variant started doing its thing, the country had hit a low of only 1,278 active infections. On that same day, there were only 105 new infections.
On Wednesday, there were 660 people in hospital, of which 124 in an intensive care unit.
A total of 7,505 people have lost their lives to covid in Costa Rica, with 13 deaths alone between Tuesday and Wednesday, on average, 1 death every two hours.
Last month, daily deaths related to covid were in the low single digits, with 10 days without a death recorded. In fact, in December, there were three consecutive days (December 12, 13 and 14) that no deaths due to covid were reported.
Have we hit the peak?
We can only hope so. However, it may still be some days before that may happen. The University of Costa Rica (UCR) model for the current wave of the pandemic forecasts hitting 15,000 new cases daily before we can, like in Europe, move towards ‘a kind of pandemic endgame’.
For now, we can all do our part, maintaining the sanitary measures to prevent further spread of Omicron with the proven health and social measures.
May the Omicron never be with you.
