QCOSTARICA – The contagion rate of covid-19 continues to decline in Costa Rica, going from 0.97 a week ago to 0.94, according to the School of Medicine of the Universidad Hispanoamericana.
Over at the Centro Centroamericano de Poblacion of the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR), the rate is 0.96 with a stationary trend since approximately mid-October.
The contagion rate, also called the R rate, indicates how many people could infect, on average, each carrier of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19.
If it is equal to 1, each person will make another person sick on average, and this will keep the infection constant. If it is at 2, on average each person will infect two more and the transmission speed will double.
Ideally, therefore, this figure should be less than 1, which is a sign that the rate of new cases is decreasing.
An index of 0.94 or 0.96 means that an individual with the virus could transmit it to 0.94Â or 0.96 people on average.
Or, seen another way, 100 people who carry this pathogen could give rise to a generation of 94 or 96 cases, or a thousand people to 940 or 960 cases.
We must take into account that R is a very volatile factor and that it can register changes in a short time.
This index does not have to do with the number of cases, but with the transmission speed or the speed with which the virus spreads.
Nor does it measure how aggressive the virus is, but how its movement and evolution is in a certain place.