QCOSTARICA – The Ministry of Health asked the population on Tuesday to take extreme sanitary measures during the Christmas and New Year celebrations, due to a slight increase of 1.8% in infections by covid-19 and the confirmed presence of the Omicron variant in the country.
Authorities indicated that after 11 consecutive weeks with a decrease in the number of infections by covid-19, during the week of December 12 to 18, there were 572 cases, a total of 10 more infections compared to the previous week of December 5. as of December 11, for an increase of 1.8%.
The National Emergency Commission (CNE) pointed out that this is data that must be treated with care since it adds to the arrival of the Ómicron variant, which accounts for 73% of new Covid cases in the United States, Costa Rica’s main source of visitors.
“The increase that occurred this week should not alarm us but calls us to rethink how we should and we can celebrate Christmas and New Year’s with our loved ones, without exposing ourselves unnecessarily. Although the evolution of the pandemic in our country in recent weeks has been positive, in many other countries the outbreaks have led to new spikes of contagion,” said CNE President Alexander Solís.
Costa Rica registers four cases of the Omicron variant in the country, the first case is that of an 8-year-old boy who visited the United States with his family at the beginning of December. The other three cases are related.
The Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) revealed that as of December 20 the application of doses of the vaccine against covid-19 reached 7,580,046, of which 3,934,813 correspond to first doses, 3,444,299 to second and 200,0934 to third doses.
The CCSS reported on Wednesday the application of first doses is 92.1% of the target population over 12 years of age, 80.6% of second doses and 4.7% of third doses (76.21%, 66.71% and 3.89% of the total population, respectively). See all the vaccination statistics here
