QCOSTARICA – Alone at the conference table from Casa Presidencial, the Minister of Health, Daniel Salas, made the rare appearance lately to provide us with the latest report on the pandemic.
In the last couple of months, Dr. Salas has rarely appeared at the conference table, leaving the task to his minions, mostly his vice-minister, Pedro Gonzalez and medical manager, Priscilla Herrera and their recorded video.
The presence of Dr. Salas and his “sermon” was somewhat reassuring, yet one couldn’t shake the feeling that, given his presence, we were in trouble.
Well, we are, but nothing that cannot be handled, that is we take the responsibility to take of ourselves, our friends, our families, our co-workers by using a mask and maintaining social distancing.
As to the numbers, for Friday, September 20, the Minister reported 1,187 new cases of the coronavirus, for a total of 129,418 – 62,733 are women and 66,685 men – of which 110,405 are Costa Rican and 19,013 are foreigners.
As of Friday, there are 79,372 (61.3%) recovered people, of which 38,327 are women and 41,045 are men.
470 people are hospitalized, 217 of them in intensive care with an age range of one to 90 years.
The number of hospitalizations and ICU needs has risen in the last 10 days, with Minister Salas reminding us of the vulnerability of medical services, a sustained rise and/or spike could easily collapse the country’s hospital capacity.
On Friday, nine deaths were reported, bringing the total deaths associated with Covid-19 to 1,608: 613 women and 995 men, with an age range of nine to 101 years.