QCOSTARICA – Costa Rica could be only weeks away from having the sanitary restrictions due to the pandemic lifted. This was announced today, Thursday, by President Carlos Alvarado on his first day back in public after being infected with covid-19, attending the opening ceremony of the 2022 school year held at the Neftalí Villalobos School in San Pablo de Heredia.
“If everything continues as it seems to be trending, we could see an exit from this omicron wave in a few weeks. And that would be good. Everything indicates that they (sanitary restrictions) will be lifted in a few weeks. The measures are going to be lifted, everything points to it,” he asserted.
Among the restrictions in force are the vehicular restriction and the control of capacity in commercial establishments and activities; other measures include social distancing and the use of masks.
Alvarado, in his announcement, made no distinction leaving it open that all sanitary measures may be lifted.
Alvarado said that while new infections have slowed down the past couple of weeks, it has yet to be reflected in hospitalization levels and deaths due to covid-19.
For this Thursday, the Ministry of Health reported 4,005 new cases, bringing the total to 779,323 people infected since the first case in March 2020, of which 629,174 (81%) have recovered, while 142,275 (18%) active cases remain.
The total number of deaths is now 7,874 (1%), of which 27 were in the last 24 hours, single highest number for a single day during this wave.
As to hospitalizations, there are 994 people in hospitals, of which 133 people in Intensive Care Units (ICU).
”Next Tuesday we will follow up with the situation room again to see if the trend in cases is transferred to hospitalizations to make decisions about the measures. There was a trend in some countries that have lifted measures before us. However, many of those nations have had a rebound of cases and that is what we do not want,” Alvarado warned.
On Tuesday, legislators voted to fast-track legislation that would remove the vehicle restrictions in place since the start of the pandemic by way of a government decree.
