(QCOSTARICA) Costa Rica registered its seventh death by covid-19 this Sunday, May 10, when an 80-year-old man, who was hospitalized at the Enrique Baltodano Briceño Hospital, in Liberia, Guanacaste, lost his battle against the coronavirus.
According to the Ministry of Health, the patient had multiple risk factors. He was a foreigner residing in Alajuela. His nationality was not disclosed.
“The deceased, in addition to age, suffered from high blood pressure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), both risk factors for covid-19. He was diagnosed on Saturday, May 9 and admitted the same day to intensive care at the Liberia hospital,” said the Ministerio de Salud.
This is the first death of the covid-19 of a foreigner in Costa Rica.
The Mayo Clinic points out that COPD is caused by long-term exposure to irritating gases or particles.
“Emphysema and chronic bronchitis are the two most frequent conditions that contribute to developing COPD. Chronic bronchitis is inflammation of the lining of the bronchi, which carry air to and from the air sacs (alveoli) of the lung. It is characterized by daily cough and the production of mucus (sputum) ”, explains the Mayo Clinic on its website.
So far, all the people who have died from the new coronavirus in Costa Rica are men. This is the first death that occurs outside the Greater Metropolitan Area (GAM).
The last two deaths had occurred on April 19 and 20. In other words, the country had not registered any deaths for 20 days.
The number of Covid-19 confirmed cases reached 792 this Sunday, May 10, when 12 new cases were reported.
Minister of Health Daniel Salas explained they are 369 women and 423 men between 1 and 87 years old.
The age, they 750 adults (41 seniors) and 42 minors, of which 686 are Costa Rican and 106 are foreigners.
“This death is in addition to the already registered six people, all men, with an age range of 45 to 87 years,” added Salud in the statement.
With respect to the other six fatalities, three were in the San Juan de Dios Hospital and Hospital Mexico, in San Jose, and two in the San Rafael de Alajuela Hospital, in Alajuela:
March 18: An 87-year-old man admitted to the San Rafael de Alajuela Hospital, Alajuela, with risk factors.
March 19: Another 87-year-old man admitted to the San Rafael de Alajuela Hospital, Alajuela, with risk factors.
April 8: A 45-year-old man admitted to the San Juan de Dios Hospital, San Jose, without risk factors.
April 15. An 84-year-old man admitted to the San Juan de Dios Hospital, San Jose, with risk factors.
April 19th. A 69-year-old man admitted to the San Juan de Dios Hospital, San Jose, with risk factors.
April 20th. A 54-year-old man admitted to the Hospital Mexico, San Jose, with risk factors.
May 10. An 80-year-old man admitted to the Enrique Baltodano Briceño Hospital, Liberia, Guanacaste, with risk factors.
Once a person has contracted coronavirus, it can take 2–14 days for symptoms to appear. The average incubation period appears to be roughly 5–6 days.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), symptoms of coronavirus can be mild and come on gradually. According to The Lancet, when hospital admission is necessary, this typically occurs from 7 days onwards.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) state that a person with COVID-19 can experience a wide range of symptoms, often including a dry cough and shortness of breath.
They may also have a combination of at least two of the following symptoms:
fever
chills
repeated shaking with chills
muscle pain
headache
sore throat
new loss of taste or smell
According to 2020 research, the prevalence of some of these symptoms appears to be:
Symptom
Prevalence (%)
Dry cough
60.4
Shortness of breath or breathing difficulties
41.1
Fever
55.5
Muscle pain
44.6
Headache
42.6
Sore throat
31.2
Smell and taste disturbance
64.4
Fatigue
68.3
Fever
Doctors consider a temperature of 100.4°F or higher to be a fever.
A person with a fever will feel hot to touch on their back or chest.
Dry cough
A dry cough does not produce mucus.
According to the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS), if a person notices they are coughing a lot for over an hour, or they have three or more coughing episodes in a day, they may have coronavirus.
Fatigue
Fatigue is a feeling of tiredness and an overall lack of energy. A person with fatigue may feel drained, weak, or sluggish.
Shortness of breath
Shortness of breath is a subjective feeling. However, those experiencing shortness of breath may describe it feeling as if they are suffocating, or unable to catch their breath.
What are the other symptoms?
Other symptoms of COVID-19 may include:
blocked nose
diarrhea
sputum, or coughed up mucus and saliva
nausea
vomiting
When to seek medical attention
People who are experiencing mild COVID-19 will typically be able to recover at home without hospital treatment.
However, around 1 in 5 people with a coronavirus infection will become seriously unwell and develop breathing difficulties.
Anyone noticing the following symptoms should seek medical attention immediately:
trouble breathing
constant pain, or pressure, in the chest
confusion
inability to wake up
blue tinted lips or face
A person with any of these symptoms, or other symptoms that are severe or causing concern, should call 911 immediately.
People should also tell the service operator that they think they have contracted coronavirus. If possible, they should put on a cloth face mask or covering before help arrives.
What to do about early symptoms
If a person notices that they or a child has symptoms of COVID-19, however mild, they should:
self-isolate at home, keeping separate from others in the property
stay indoors, unless seeking medical aid
get plenty of rest
stay hydrated with plenty of liquids
take over-the-counter (OTC) cold and flu medicine to soothe symptoms
monitor symptoms and phone the doctor if necessary
wear a face mask when around other individuals
follow local health department guidelines
cover their mouth with a tissue when coughing or sneezing, then wash hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds
wash hands regularly and thoroughly
avoid touching eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands
keep separate glasses, cups, dishes, eating utensils, towels, and bedding if sharing a house with others
clean and disinfect surfaces, such as doorknobs, counters, remote controls, phones, keyboards, bathroom surfaces, or tables frequently
People who have symptoms of coronavirus infection should continue to self-isolate and follow these guidelines for 14 days, even if they begin to feel healthy.
How to care for someone with early symptoms
If a person is caring for someone with early symptoms of coronavirus infection, they should ensure they follow guidelines to protect themselves and the care receiver.
These can include:
helping the care receiver follow any instructions from a doctor
keeping them hydrated
helping with groceries, prescriptions, and other requirements
caring for any pets
providing the care receiver with OTC medications when appropriate
monitoring their symptoms and looking for signs that they may need more medical help
washing cloth face masks after use
monitoring their own health for coronavirus symptoms
wearing disposable gloves when washing the care receiver’s dirty laundry
cleaning and disinfecting surfaces daily
using a separate bedroom and bathroom from the care receiver
ensuring good air ventilation to reduce chances of getting the virus
The person giving care should make sure they limit contact, as much as possible, with the individual they are caring for.
The carer should wear a face mask when near the sick person, and gloves if they come into contact with their blood, stool, or bodily fluids.
If the care receiver is trouble breathing easily, they should also always wear a face mask when the carer is nearby.
Frequently washing hands thoroughly for 20 seconds with soap and water is critical for the carer.
How is it transmitted?
Coronavirus typically spreads via small water droplets that a person with the virus produces when they talk, cough, or sneeze. When another person inhales these droplets, the SARS-CoV-2 virus can enter the body.
Droplets in the air can also land on surfaces and objects. People who touch these contaminated surfaces are at risk of infection if they then touch their eyes, nose, or mouth before washing their hands.
Some people may transmit the virus despite being asymptomatic. However, researchers do not know how often this may happen.
People should follow the guidelines put in place by their local health organizations to ensure they keep themselves and others safe.
Prevention
A person can protect themselves from coronavirus by following the CDC guidelines.
They include:
washing hands often for at least 20 seconds with soap and water
using hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol if washing hands is not possible
avoiding touching the eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands
keeping away from people with a coronavirus infection
keeping a distance of at least 6 feet from other people
covering mouth and nose with a face cover when around others
covering nose and mouth with a tissue when coughing or sneezing
cleaning and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces
COVID-19 is a highly infectious disease that will usually produce symptoms a person can manage at home. However, it can occasionally cause severe illness.
People with a coronavirus infection should ensure they follow guidelines and self-isolate for 14 days from when they become sick.
If a person with COVID-19 has trouble breathing, or experiences other concerning symptoms, they should call 911 and seek medical attention.
Medical staff carry a patient into the Jinyintan hospital, where patients infected by a mysterious SARS-like virus are being treated, in Wuhan, China, on Saturday. | AFP-JIJI
Paris, France (AFP) – From head to toe, passing through the lungs or kidneys. The list of symptoms caused by the new coronavirus grows every week and few organs seem safe from this disease where the forms vary from benign to very serious.
Every week, it seems, the list of COVID-19 symptoms — ranging from disagreeable to the deadly — grows longer.
What began as a familiar flu-like cluster of chills, headaches and fever has rapidly expanded over the last three months into a catalog of syndromes affecting almost all the body’s organs, from the brain to the kidneys.
The new coronavirus can also push the immune system into overdrive, unleashing an indiscriminate assault — known as a cytokine storm — on pathogens and their human hosts alike.
“Most viruses can cause disease in two ways,” explained Jeremy Rossman, a senior lecturer in virology at the University of Kent.
“They can damage tissue where the virus replicates, or they can cause damage as a side-effect of the immune system fighting off the disease.”
Doctors suspect, for example, that COVID-19 is behind the hospitalization in recent weeks of several dozen children in New York, London and Paris diagnosed with a rare inflammatory disorder similar to toxic shock syndrome.
Affecting mainly young children, the painful disease attacks artery walls and can cause organ failure.
An elderly woman with symptoms of the new coronavirus is carried into an ambulance in Buenos Aires on Thursday. (Photo by Leon Neal / POOL / AFP)
Dozens of medical studies in recent weeks have detailed other potentially lethal impacts including strokes and heart damage.
Researchers from the urology department of Nanjing Medical University, writing this week in Nature Reviews, described patients developing severe urinary complications and acute kidney injury.
They also observed “dramatic changes” in male sex hormones.
“After recovery from COVID-19, young men who are interested in having children should receive a consultation regarding their fertility,” they concluded.
Does that mean that COVID-19 causes a uniquely broad array of symptoms? Not necessarily, virologists and other experts say.
“If it is a common disease, then even rare complications will happen frequently,” said Babak Javid, a consultant in infectious diseases at Cambridge University Hospitals.
There are nearly 3.8 million confirmed COVID-19 cases around the world, but the true number of infections — taking into account undetected and asymptomatic infection — “is going to be in the tens, possibly hundreds of millions,” he said.
“So if one-in-1,000, or even one-in-10,000, get complications, that is still thousands of people.”
Some of the rarer symptoms associated with COVID-19 are also known to have been triggered by influenza, which kills several hundred thousand people worldwide every year, he noted.
For the new coronavirus, front-line general practitioners across the globe have been the first to look for patterns in the unfolding pandemic.
“At the outset, we were told to watch out for headaches, fever and a light cough,” recalled Sylvie Monnoye, a family doctor in central Paris for nearly three decades.
“Then they added a runny nose and a scratchy throat. After that, digestive problems, including stomachaches and severe diarrhea.”
The list kept growing: skin lesions, neurological problems, sharp chest pains, loss of taste and smell.
“We started to think that we should suspect everything,” Monnoye said, dressed from head-to-toe in protective wear.
Some patients were so terrified, she added, that they cowered in the corner of her office afraid to touch anything or get too close to her.
Medical personnel move an elderly non-COVID-19 patient from hospital to a care home near Portsmouth, south England on May 5, 2020. (Photo by Leon Neal / POOL / AFP)
An internal U.S. Centers for Disease Control report with a breakdown of symptoms for 2,591 COVID-10 patients admitted to hospital between March 1 and May 1 chimes with such anecdotal accounts.
Three-quarters of the patients experienced chills, fever and/or coughing, with nearly as many showing shortness of breath.
These are, by far, the most common COVID-19 symptoms.
Nearly a third complained of flu-like muscle aches, while 28 percent experienced diarrhea and a quarter nausea or vomiting, according to the internal report, leaked to the media.
Some 18 percent had headaches, while 10 to 15 percent were hit by chest or abdominal pain, runny nose, sore throat and/or a feeling of confusion.
Less than one percent of the CDC cohort had other symptoms, including seizures, rashes and conjunctivitis.
Health authorities have been slow in alerting the public to this panoply of possible impacts.
Until the end of April, the CDC itself only listed three on its website: coughing, fever and shortness of breath. The update included only a few more: chills, muscle pain, headaches and loss of smell or taste. France’s health officials made a similar update on May 5.
A loss of smell and taste was found in only 3.5 percent of patients included in the CDC report, but experts suspect these symptoms are — for reasons unknown — far more prevalent in less severe cases where people were not hospitalized.
Monnoye said it was among the most common of the symptoms she encountered, and agreed that it was “probably linked to a milder form of the disease.”
“I don’t have any patients with these symptoms who had serious complications,” she said.
The loss of taste and smell, experts note, is extremely rare with other types of viruses.
Another cluster of symptoms rarely found in flu patients appears to arise from blood clots.
Heart problems, liver thrombosis, lung embolisms and brain damage in COVID-19 patients have been traced to such clots in a flurry of recent studies. Others have described kidney failure and even gummed-up dialysis machines.
“When one is very sick with COVID, you can have a problem with blood clots forming, and that seems to be much, much more common than with other viral infections,” added Javid.
“Compared to influenza, you are much more likely to become seriously ill, and to die.”
You can reduce your chances of being infected or spreading COVID-19 by taking some simple precautions:
Regularly and thoroughly clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or wash them with soap and water. Why? Washing your hands with soap and water or using alcohol-based hand rub kills viruses that may be on your hands.
Maintain at least 2 meters (6 feet) distance between yourself and others. Why? When someone coughs, sneezes, or speaks they spray small liquid droplets from their nose or mouth which may contain virus. If you are too close, you can breathe in the droplets, including the COVID-19 virus if the person has the disease.
Avoid going to crowded places. Why? Where people come together in crowds, you are more likely to come into close contact with someone that has COIVD-19 and it is more difficult to maintain physical distance of 2 meters (6 feet).
Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth. Why? Hands touch many surfaces and can pick up viruses. Once contaminated, hands can transfer the virus to your eyes, nose or mouth.
From there, the virus can enter your body and infect you.
Make sure you, and the people around you, follow good respiratory hygiene. This means covering your mouth and nose with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Then dispose of the used tissue immediately and wash your hands. Why? Droplets spread virus. By following good respiratory hygiene, you protect the people around you from viruses such as cold, flu and COVID-19.
Stay home and self-isolate even with minor symptoms such as cough, headache, mild fever, until you recover. Have someone bring you supplies. If you need to leave your house, wear a mask to avoid infecting others. Why? Avoiding contact with others will protect them from possible COVID-19 and other viruses.
If you have a fever, cough and difficulty breathing, seek medical attention, but call by telephone in advance if possible and follow the directions of your local health authority. Why? National and local authorities will have the most up to date information on the situation in your area. Calling in advance will allow your health care provider to quickly direct you to the right health facility. This will also protect you and help prevent spread of viruses and other infections.
Keep up to date on the latest information from trusted sources, such as WHO or your local and national health authorities. Why? Local and national authorities are best placed to advise on what people in your area should be doing to protect themselves.
To protect yourself and others against COVID-19, clean your hands frequently and thoroughly. Use alcohol-based hand sanitizer or wash your hands with soap and water. If you use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, make sure you use and store it carefully.
Keep alcohol-based hand sanitizers out of children’s reach. Teach them how to apply the sanitizer and monitor its use.
Apply a coin-sized amount on your hands. There is no need to use a large amount of the product.
Avoid touching your eyes, mouth and nose immediately after using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, as it can cause irritation.
Hand sanitizers recommended to protect against COVID-19 are alcohol-based and therefore can be flammable. Do not use before handling fire or cooking.
Under no circumstance, drink or let children swallow an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. It can be poisonous.
Remember that washing your hands with soap and water is also effective against COVID-19.
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA – Avianca, the second-largest airline in Latin America, filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States on Sunday to reorganize its debt “due to the unpredictable impact” of the coronavirus pandemic.
n a statement issued in Bogota, Avianca said that along with “some of its subsidiaries and affiliates,” it had asked to “voluntarily file for Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code” in a New York court.
The process allows financially struggling companies to reorganize and restructure their debt.
The airline’s operations “have been dramatically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic,” as well as federal air travel restrictions.
The company “continues to have high fixed costs,” the statement said.
Avianca temporarily suspended all passenger operations in late March, following Colombian President Ivan Duque’s decision to close the country’s airspace as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose.
The decision, which grounded 142 aircraft, “has reduced consolidated income by more than 80 percent and has put significant pressure on liquidity,” according to the statement.
It added that 12,000 of the airline’s more than 20,000 employees would take unpaid leave.
The company asked the New York court for “authorization to fulfill work commitments” prior to the bankruptcy protection request and “maintain the compensation scheme applicable to its employees.”
The coronavirus pandemic has dealt a crushing blow to the global aviation industry, which has been directly affected by confinement measures and travel restrictions.
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Latin American airlines will lose $15 billion in revenue this year, the worst crisis in the industry’s history.
Avianca, which had already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US in 2003, recorded a net loss of $894 million in 2019, against a $1.1 million profit the year before.
Avianca Holdings — which carried 30.5 million passengers in 2019 — is currently comprised of the Colombian airlines Avianca and Tampa Cargo, the Ecuadorian airline Aerogal and the companies of the Taca International Airline Group, which has offices in Central America and Peru.
A street vendor wearing a face mask poses outside the central market in San Salvador on May 6, 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
El Salvador began a more restrictive lockdown Thursday, May 7, to curtail the spread of the coronavirus, with an emphasis on the densely populated capital region of San Salvador.
A street vendor wearing a face mask poses outside the central market in San Salvador on May 6, 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a national address late Tuesday, President Nayib Bukele said residents will only be permitted to shop for groceries twice a week.
He said citizens will not be allowed to travel between jurisdictions unless they have a written document justifying their movement.
Under the special lockdown, El Salvador will also suspend public transportation for 15 days to help efforts to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.
Bukele said if the scale of the outbreak drops substantially during the 15 days, the country will be able to start reopening some businesses.
So far, El Salvador has reported 633 cases of COVID-19 and 15 deaths.
While enjoying some Coronas with friends, on Saturday, May 9, 2020, Stephanie, who had been trying for weeks for a great shot from her balcony, finally achieved a successful snap of San Jose, Alajuela, and Heredia.
(QCOSTARICA) Costa Rica would be one of the best destinations to visit post-covid-19, thanks to the successful management of the pandemic and a robust health system, according to experts in tourism and international media.
The applause has come in recent days from media such as El País from Spain, ABC and Condé Nast Traveler from the United States and BBC Mundo from the UK, among others.
And it is that unlike other countries with great tourist attraction and more developed, such as Spain, Italy and the United States, in Costa Rica only six deaths were registered to May 9, achieved with an only partial closure of commerce and no stay at home order.
And, Costa Rica has the lowest incidence rate of covid-19 deaths in Latin America, which are the nations with which Costa Rica will eventually have to compete to attract visitors.
In addition to the solid Health system, the country has another advantage, which is the possibility of offering semi-private, boutique tourism, which allows for some isolation, social distancing.
“The advantage is that Costa Rica does not have an image of mass tourism like Punta Cana, for example. The destinations that many tourists concentrate in a single area will be very affected by the problem of social distancing,” said Antoine Cros, regional representative for Air France-KLM.
Helping airlines will also be essential to take advantage of being perceived as a safe destination, said Mauricio Ventura, former Minister of Tourism.
Ventura said that one of those aids could come from Recope, reducing the local price of jet fuel, taking advantage of the dramatic drop in international oil prices.
Last year, one of the airlines’ complaints was the high price of filling up in Costa Rica, so they went to neighboring countries in search of more affordable fuel.
Tourists need to be motivated
Experts say tourists will not come “running”, so investing in advertising campaigns will be important too.
Less revenue and more expensive tickets for complying with the social distancing measures in the planes will slow the reactivation, Ventura added.
In this scenario, the country will have to lower costs also for foreign tourists, as the Costa Rican Tourism Institute has already announced that it will do so with national tourists.
This considering that post-Coronavirus tourism will be marked by younger travelers with a lower income capacity, since the retired or older population will be more cautious with their travel, being the most vulnerable to the virus.
The most encouraging picture of the arrival of tourists for the rest of 2020 is about 300,000 visitors, assuming that flights resume in August, estimated the Cámara Nacional de Turismo. (National Chamber of Tourism).
Tourists Miss Us
Between April and May, international travel magazines promoted Costa Rica as a post-coronavirus destination.
@Nigelmarven our family trip to Costa Rica got cancelled due to Coronavirus, so our budding naturalists got busy in the basement. Thought you’d appreciate this: pic.twitter.com/h3glNRIQqa
At the discretion of Antoine Cros, regional representative of Air France-KLM, Costa Rica can offer a tourist destination that may be compatible with a certain isolation. Courtesy Antoine Cros / The Republic
(QCOSTARICA) International air activity could normalize in October, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), but before that, airlines must gradually operate until they regain their occupancy and frequencies.
According to Antoine Cros, regional representative of Air France-KLM, Costa Rica can offer a tourist destination that may be compatible with a certain isolation. Photo: La Republica
In this scenario, it will be vital to reduce the cost of operation to the maximum to survive, says Antoine Cros, regional representative of the Air France-KLM group.
The executive was part of the “Tourism in Costa Rica during and after the Coronavirus” forum, organized by the Dutch-Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce, which also featured Joost Wilms, representative of Holland Hotels and María Amalia Revelo, Minister of Tourism.
These are some of the questions that Cros answered.
How have airlines dealt with the crisis?
Most have reduced costs and limited their operation to the maximum in order to survive. In the case of Air France-KLM we do not have flights, losing a billion euros per month. In such a scenario, the best thing to do is to limit losses.
When are international flights expected to return?
IATA has a rather pessimistic scenario, in which domestic flights resume from July, and international flights in October.
In the case of Air France-KLM, flights will start little by little from the middle of May, and the goal is to reach 30% of the frequencies we had before the pandemic from July.
Is it the same picture for Costa Rica?
To fly to Central America through connections, we need the resumption of Copa Airlines, if this happens, we will be able to fly to Costa Rica from Panama starting in June (direct Air France-KLM flights to Costa Rica operate in the high season, that is, October and end in March).
Meanwhile, direct flights to each country will depend on demand; If there is a significant flow to a destination, we will increase the number of seats and then the number of flights.
We will not take risks that may generate losses.
How difficult will it be for airlines to resume operations?
The return will be slow. Little by little, we will begin to recover what we had in the past, both in traffic and tourism.
Everything will depend on the confidence of passengers in mass transportation and in leaving their countries.
The biggest challenge is to generate profits while respecting the social distancing and the restrictions of the pandemic.
What measures are considered to control the pandemic once operations resume?
It is going to be very difficult for an airline to have a plane half full or one-third full, the profitability is less than 10%, so it will not be possible to respect social distancing in airplanes, other measures must be sought such as disinfection, tests, and masks.
It is even valued, like vaccines, that the passports indicate that the passenger has already passed the Covid-19.
How will post-pandemic measures impact airfares?
Although the airlines are trying to survive, the idea is not to operate a flight half full and charge half, because no airline would fly.
It is unlikely that fares will drop to implement traffic in June, however, I believe that by September there will be a kind of fare war between airlines to fill their planes and face competition in high season.
How do you see the recovery in tourism for Costa Rica?
The advantage is that Costa Rica does not have a mass tourism image like Punta Cana, for example.
The destinations that many tourists concentrate in a single area will be very affected by the problem of social distancing.
(QCOSTARICA) Since the restricted borders measures in Costa Rica went into effect, a total of 13 flights have landed at the Juan Santamaría International Airport, repatriating Costa Ricans.
The last one was from Colombia, arriving this Saturday (May 9) morning.
These are Costa Ricans who for various reasons were abroad and decided to return to Costa Rica during the current emergency, according to Román Macaya, executive president of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund.
A total of 652 people traveled on these 13 flights, of which – to date – 15 have been positive to the COVID-19 test.
Macaya explained that in accordance with Health protocols, not only the 15 infected people but all 652 people received a quarantine order, to stay at home for 15 days after their arrival.
According to the president of the CCSS, there is a permanent medical team at the Juan Santamaria International airport (SJO) to attend to all people arriving from abroad.
Until June 15 (extended from May 15), only Costa Ricans and legal residents are permitted entry into the country by land, sea air. There are some exemptions, ie diplomats, airline crews and by special permit.
That is to say, until June 15, tourists are prohibited from entering Costa Rica.
Truckers tested at land borders
The CCSS confirms that there are 27 other health officials distributed at the land border points applying tests to the truckers, who move mainly between Central America hauling cargo, at Tablillas (Los Chiles) and Peñas Blancas (La Cruz) on the border with Nicaragua, and Paso Canoas (Corredores) and Sixaola (Talamanca) on the border with Panama.
Four truckers have tested positive in recent days.
The Costa Rican Chamber of Distributors and Exhibitors (Cadec) presented a cleaning, disinfection, customer service and communication protocol to reopen the country’s movie theaters in the new normal, dominated by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
In total, these are 18 measures to ensure the safety of those who want to enjoy movies in theaters again, which closed since mid-March to prevent further outbreaks of the COVID-19 disease.
Theaters have had permission from the Ministry of Health to reopen since May 1.
The managers of the cinemas presented to the Ministry a protocol that, among other measures, contemplates the training of personnel in the new cleaning and security regulations to avoid contagions; not allow employees or customers who show visible cold symptoms to enter; the use of gloves and masks; the use of 70% alcohol gel solution in addition to frequent hand washing.
As for the restrooms, the cinemas claim that they will have cleaning logs to keep strict control, as well as in common areas, rooms, locker areas and food dispensing areas.
The theaters will also be cleaned and disinfected before and after each screening, guaranteeing hygiene to prevent the virus from becoming lodged on the surfaces, with special care for the arms of the chairs and backrests.
“Regarding air conditioning, periodic maintenance will be assigned, for example, to ensure that the air quality that workers and consumers have inside the cinema is adequate,” indicates a document shared by the Chamber.
Other measures considered include: limiting the capacity of elevators, promoting online ticket buying to reduce attendance at ticket offices, promoting credit card purchases to avoid the use of cash, demarcation of floors of ticket offices and confectioneries to determine the distance between people and the placement of several hand disinfection stations in cinemas.
As for the separation of people within the movie theaters, this will be 2 meters allowing family groups to sit together, avoiding the separation between parents and children.
Before the beginning of each film, a commercial will be shown in which the new protocols and standards will be communicated.
(QCOSTARICA) This Saturday, May 9, the total confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Costa Rica reached 780, seven new cases over the day earlier.
The Minister of Health, Daniel Salas, confirmed the numbers Saturday at the daily press conference.
To date, 480 people with covid-19 have recovered, lowering the number of active cases to 294, of which 22 are hospitalized (6 of them in Intenvise Care) and the rest recovering at home.
The San Carlos Flagrancy Court sentenced a trucker to six years and six months in prison who facilitated the illegal entry of two foreigners, along the northern border, during the coronavirus emergency.
Immigration police, with the help of various police forces, have stepped up their patrols of the northern border to detect illegal entry.
On Thursday, the court the man identified by his last names Santos Rios, a resident Los Chiles, guilty of the crime of smuggling of migrants, between April 16 and 17 of this year, through the Tablillas sector in Los Chiles.
According to accusation and the immigration police, a person, still not identified, helped two foreigners enter the country illegally and took them to Santos Rios who was waiting for them, who gave them accommodations of the night and then moved them to the own of Pavon, in exchange for ¢30,000 colones each.
But on the way, Santos Rios ran into a roadblock, he fled, police gave chase and intercepted him in area of La Chalupa.
Article 249 of the General Law on Immigration (8764) establishes a prison sentence of four to eight years “for anyone who drives or transports people, for their entry into the country or their departure from it, through authorized or non-authorized places by the competent immigration authorities, evading established immigration controls or using data or legal documents, or false or altered, or that do not carry any documentation.
According to Immigration figures, since March 19, when the “secure borders” operation began, they have registered 12 cases of migrant smuggling, where 15 people have been arrested, 13 are men, and two women.
On Tuesday of this week, two individuals were arrested, also in the community of La Chalupa, in Los Chiles, for smuggling of migrants. The two men, identified as González and Flores, were in charge of receiving two foreigners in the border area of La Trocha in order to transport them by motorcycle to La Chalupa.
The foreigners had previously been rejected, but they tried to enter again through a blind spot, for which they contacted González and Flores who charged him the sum of ¢40,000 to enter them illegally in Costa Rican territory, the Immigration service reported this Saturday.
Beaches and national parks remian closed while more stores and businesses are allowed to open this Sunday, May 10
(QCOSTARICA) What will be the sanitary vehicle restriction that applies this Sunday, May 10? Since May 1, the Ministry of Health allowed the minimal reactivation of some trade and service activities.
Beaches and national parks remian closed while more stores and businesses are allowed to open this Sunday, May 10
Now, on Saturdays and Sundays people can go out by car or motorcycle to go to more establishments, apart from the supermarket, pharmacy or the hospital, from 5 am to 7 pm.
Establishments or services enabled today, Sunday:
1. Beauty salons and barbershops, with a capacity of 50%, according to maximum capacity and only by appointment.
2. Retail sale of auto parts and accessories, with a capacity of 50%, according to maximum occupancy capacity.
3. Parking lots or parking garages.
4. Bicycle rental, with the application of strict disinfection and hygiene measures.
5. Repair of vehicles, motorcycles, tires, and bicycle workshops, agricultural equipment, machinery and heavy and industrial equipment, with a capacity of 50%, according to maximum capacity.
6. Grooming salons for pets, municipal management platforms, public or private banking and financial services, as well as funeral parlors and/or chapels, all with a capacity of 50%.
7. Oil change service for vehicles (Lubricentros) and car wash service (Lavacar).
8. Farmer’s market, as well as sale of agricultural, veterinary and animal feed supplies, with a capacity of 50%.
9. Sales of agricultural, livestock, aquaculture and fishing products, also with a capacity of 50%.
10. Department stores will remain closed today, Sunday.
Who can drive this Sunday?
Only vehicles with even plates: (0, 2, 4, 6 and 8) between 5:00 am and 7:00 pm will be allowed to circulate. After 7:00 pm and until 5:00 am Monday, all vehicles (except with specific exemptions) are not permitted to circulate.
From 5:00 am Monday and (for now) until 7:00 pm, vehicles with the plates ending 1 & 2 cannot circulate.
The vehicular restrictions (for now) are nationwide.
“For now” is used because President Carlos Alvarado will be making an announcement on Monday on new measures with a focus to reactivating commercial activity. Among the changes expected are relaxed vehicular restrictions.
The fine for violating the vehicle restrictions are ¢110,000 colones, six points on the driver’s license and subject to seizure of plates and/or vehicle. This sanction came into effect on April 3. Prior to that date, only a monetary fine of ¢23,415 applied.
The country began to apply these sanitary restrictions progressively since March 6, when the first case of covid-19 was detected in the country.
Andy Villegas makes 72211373 available both to ask for help and to anyone who wants to donate. Photo: Katherine Mora
Andy Villegas is a Costa Rican ‘Tarotista’ (Tarot card reader) who takes a percentage of her earnings, sometimes half, to buy food and donate it to families who have been in a difficult situation due to the coronavirus.
Andy Villegas makes her cell number public 7221 1373 both for people to ask for help and to anyone who wants to donate. Photo: Katherine Mora / La Teja
She charges ten Tarjitos (¢10,000 colones) for the Tarot card reading session and since she decided to help the needy families, her work was increased, up to ten people per day. She believes that this is the ‘divine’ result of the help she gives.
It all started when a client told her the case of a senior living in precarious conditions in Desamparados. Andy decided to help.
Then, through the world’s best publicity, word of mouth, three other families sought out Andy and benefited.
“When you give, you feel good. I love helping,” said Andy.
At that time, after helping four families, Andy decided to go one step further to see how she was doing: put on her social networks that if someone needed help, she was willing to lend a hand as far as her resources allowed, but she also asked for collaboration from anyone who wanted to give it.
Many of Andy’s clients are wealthy to do: doctors, lawyers, and similar profiles, and they started donating groceries.
The first who approached her on social networks was Paola Chavarría, but she did not asking for help, rather asking for a job.
Paola, 33, is in charge of six boys ranging from four to 16 years old. She is the mother of three and aunt to the other three. She also cares for a senior.
“It was the case that most moved me. I can’t bear to see the little ones go hungry and because of the coronavirus situation they entered a state of anxiety. So, every so often, they asked her for something, a cookie, to say the least, and she had nothing.
“They sell pejibayes, but the man who gave her the fruit stopped, I don’t know why he didn’t do it anymore and they were left with nothing. I was desperate and she felt the need to look for me and tell me her story, she showed me pictures of the children. They had nothing to eat. It was difficult,” said the tarot reader.
Each child receives the package of groceries distributed by the Ministry of Education, and Paola appreciates that help, but it is not enough for every day. So Andy did not hesitate to take part in her profits, buy food and tell the story on social networks.
“I started to be contacted by clients who were saying, ‘Take this to buy such a thing, take the other.’ A person of humble condition and who I know only had two bags of rice gave me one,” Andy confessed.
Paola told us that she is very grateful for Andy’s gesture, whom she considers an angel.
“I do this because it comes from my heart and I make it known so that whoever needs help knows where they can find a helping hand” Andy Villegas
“I was desperate and one day with a migraine lying down I went to Facebook and saw a message from Andy saying that if someone was having a difficult financial time, they would contact her.”
“I kept thinking, wanting to call, saying‘ what a shame, what a shame and all that ’… but she could have been a mom and when I called Andy’s response was incredible,” said Paola.
It turns out that Andy was willing to listen to her story, look at the photos, and help the family.
“It was the angel that God sent me and I said to my husband, they are going to help us, we will have something to eat for a few days, our children will have sustenance. I cried locked in my room, then another young woman called me. It was surprising that they came together.”
The tarot reader believes that the crisis has brought out the positive and caring side of people in greater numbers than those who seek to profit.
She said that she cannot read the situation in the world because her desire for everything to be better on the planet conditions the result. Still, she feels that in two months, the situation can improve quite a bit.
She has already helped more than thirty families in difficult situations by the coronavirus.
“The stories where hungry children and older adults are involved are the ones that move me the most. They have even told me that the only thing they have to give a young child is sugar water, that breaks my heart,” she said.
Every now and again, something will happen in this world of ours that already happened in a different world. That would be the universe of The Simpsons, the iconic Fox sitcom that some consider the greatest television show of all time.
On numerous occasions, we’ve shouted “The Simpsons did it!” to actual current events.
The latest in a long line of creepy coincidences involves a classic Season 4 episode that somehow managed to predict the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of so-called “murder hornets” in one fell swoop.
After 31 seasons and well over 600 episodes, here are a few other times when The Simpsons predicted the future…
1. The Coronavirus and Murder Hornets (Season 4, Episode 21)
– When did it happen in real life? December 2019 – who knows?
2. The Ending of Game of Thrones (Season 29, Episode 1)
– When did it happen in real life? May 12, 2019.
3. Two Eerie Football Predictions (Season 26, Episode 16) – When did it happen in real life? July 13, 2014 & December 3, 2015 .
4. Donald Trump Becomes President (Season 11, Episode 17)
– When did it happen in real life? November 8, 2016.
5. Disney Buys Fox (Season 10, Episode 5)
– When did it happen in real life? December 14, 2017.
6. Siegfried & Roy’s Tiger Attack (Season 5, Episode 10)
– When did this happen in real life? October 3, 2003.
7. Homer Predicts the Mass of the Higgs Boson (Season 10, Episode 2)
– When did this happen in real life? 2012.
8. The Simpsons Impacts the Design of the iPhone (Season 6, Episode 8)
– When did it happen in real life? 2007 and beyond.
9. A Real-Life Whacking Day (Season 4, Episode 20)
– When did it happen in real life? 2013 and 2016.
10. Blinky the Three-Eyed Fish (Season 2, Episode 4)
– When did it happen in real life? 2011.
11. Milhouse Predicts a Nobel Prize Winner (Season 22, Episode 1)
– When did this happen in real life? October 10, 2016.
12. A Lemon Tree Gets Stolen (Season 6, Episode 24)
– When did this happen in real life? June 6, 2013.
13. The Simpsons Invent FaceTime (Season 6, Episode 19)
– When did this happen in real life? June 24, 2010.
And there you have it, the bunch of times The Simpsons eerily got a future event right.
(QCOSTARICA) Starting Friday, May 8, began the collection of blood from patients recovered from the coronavirus COVID-19.
Román Macaya, executive president of the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) said on Friday they started with three patients.
“The collection of convalescent plasma began at the National Blood Bank. It consists in that patients recovered from COVID-19, negative two times, can donate blood,” said Macaya.
What is done with that blood?
“Plasma containing antibodies that were essential to eliminate the virus from the body of the recovered patient are introduced, by means of transfusion into a new patient who is currently suffering from the disease. It will be applied in patients as early as next week. The patients to whom this plasma is applied must comply with a severe or critical condition and with less than 14 days of hospitalization,” Macaya explained.
According to the CCSS chief, this donation is totally voluntary and people must have test negative in two consecutive test. They must be between 18 and 65 years old, with no medical problems.
“This is the maximum expression of solidarity and love of neighbor,” said Macaya.
As of Friday, a total of 773 people have been confirmed infected with COVID-19 in the country, of which 461 have recovered people are counted.
Patients recovered from the coronavirus can schedule appointments to donate blood through the mail: bn_sangre_covid19@ccss.sa.cr
In addition, Macaya made a new call to all people to donate blood. The pandemic has caused a drop in donations, from some 3,000 people monthly prior to covid-19 to now 2,000.
(QCOSTARICA) For the second consecutive month, the prices of the goods and services that make up the basic food basket of Costa Ricans closed with negative figures; that is, the average price in general fell.
In April, inflation was -0.44%. In March it had been -0.03%.
With this, the accumulated inflation between January and April of this year was -0.08%, according to Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INEC) – National Institute of Statistics and Censuses.
Of the 315 goods and services that make up the consumer basket, goods and services, those that showed the greatest negative effect were gasoline, tomato and automobiles.
On the other hand, those that presented increases were eggs, ground beef and limes.
Taking advantage of few people out and desolate streets, criminals set their sights on ATMs, even to obstruct roads with sticks just in case and puncture tires of police cars that could give chase.
This was the case last week in Bananito, Limón where ¢61 million colones was stolen, and in El Roble, Puntarenas, another gang got away with ¢30 million, both from ATMs.
The two attacks raised concerns of the financial sector.
“The event that happened in the Atlantic zone is worrying because when the roads were desolate, the criminals even put logs in the streets and metal pieces to puncture the tires of police and security company vehicles in response,” explained Rodney Segura, security advisor to the Costa Rican Banking Association (ABC),
Segura explained that financial institutions have invested resources in the protection of branches, as well as ATMs, but have been affected by specialized criminal groups.
The specialist recalled that this “modus operandi” is not new in the country and is linked to a band that has been operating in the country for more than 15 years. However, the group was divided and now multiple businesses are affected by robberies under this modality.
“It is no longer the gang, but are cells that began to work independently, so it is striking … curiously, there were 2 ATMs in the same week, but they can hit anywhere in the country,” he added.
Segura explained that these criminals have perfected the technique and only require a few minutes to violate ATMs that have cameras and alarms.
In the Limón attack on April 30, the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) reported that the gang of 6 attacked used acetylene torches to crack the ATMs with acetylene and stole ¢ 61 million colones.
According to the Fuerza Publica (national police) report, the call was received at about 3:05 am. Within minutes the criminals were able to open the ATM and remove the boxes with the money and fled the scene.
In Puntarenas, on April 28, at least 4 assailants completely destroyed the ATM inside the Maxi Palí supermarket and took ¢31 million in El Roble de Puntarenas.
(QCOSTARICA) On Monday, May 11, President Carlos Alvarado and Health Minister Daniel Salas will announce the schedule for reopening economic activities and “managing for a new normality” after the pandemic of the new coronavirus forced social distancing and restricted commercial and tourist activities.
In an advance notice, the Minister of Planning Pilar Garrido said Friday that the reopening will be gradual.
“We will open economic activities, subject to strict observance of health protocols. We will extend the hours of the vehicle restriction first. We will open national tourism, hotels, national parks, commerce, restaurants, theaters and cinemas. And, in a second phase, international tourism and massive events ”, explained the hierarch.
For his part, President Carlos Alvarado confirmed: “On Monday, the Minister of Health (Daniel Salas) and myself will be announcing and sharing with the country what the process will be in which we will take on a new normality, in order to resume activities social and economic, but understanding that under new protocols to face the covid-19 “.
“This is a first step that enables economic activities to resume for employment, for growth, for the well-being of our country,” said the president.
Today, Monday through Friday, between 7:00 pm and 5:00 am vehicles cannot circulate, except those with special permits; and from 5:00 am to 7:00 pm the restriction is based on the last digit of the license plate.
A number of businesses are allowed to operate at reduced capacity, while many others, such as tourism, remains closed.
Security Minister, Micheal Soto, announced on Thursday that the border restrictions will continue now to June 15; only Costa Ricans and residents (if they have not left the country after March 23) will be allowed entry.
More than half a million Cubans have no access to water. Frequent hand-washing with soap and water is the first advice we get for crucial protection against the coronavirus. However, Cubans do not have the basics for their survival.
About 21.3% of Havana does not have continuous access to water, 468,721 people out of a total of 2.2 million inhabitants. 469,000 in all of western Cuba are without water. Figures from the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (INRH) state that another 23,000 people in the central zone of the country do not have this vital liquid, nor do 21,000 in the east, making a total of 513,000 in the country.
Antonio Rodríguez, president of INRH, acknowledged the shortage of supplies on the island on Cuban television. In the program, Mesa Redonda, he explained that 111 sources of water supply are affected, 89 partially, and another 22 totally. He also explained that only one of the five catchment areas that supply water to Havana is functioning.
In other words, despite the propaganda of the Communist Party that has sold the world that Cuba is a medical power, the island does not even offer sanitary conditions for its inhabitants, starting with the first procedure to avoid the spread of the coronavirus: hand washing. Not only is there a lack of water, but soap (the second most important element to protect oneself from the COVID-19) is considered a luxury item, and therefore, scarce.
This was revealed when a group of Chileans was unable to leave the country because the regime closed the island’s airports due to the pandemic. Chilean actress and activist Carolina Cox caused an international stir after she demonstrated for months against the government of Sebastián Piñera, who she later begged for help to leave Cuba, where she was restricted from using credit cards, and there was not even any soap or medicine.
Like her, dozens of foreigners who defended the socialist model from the comfort of countries with free economies, where, with an iPhone and mobile data, they demanded the destruction of the free market system, begged to leave the socialist “utopia.”
According to testimonies compiled by Radio Martí, like that of activist María López, there is water “every three, five, or eight days. So they have no means of protecting themselves from the coronavirus or any other disease.”
After Havana, the most-affected region is the east. In Santiago de Cuba, the situation was described as “critical,” since water reaches homes every “month to two months.”
A group of Cuban women dramatically exposed the situation on the last weekend of April. They protested with empty buckets, furious and indignant because they cannot wash their sick children.
They said they had complained to government agencies, including the People’s Power, and none had sent them water. People are covering their mouths with homemade masks and throwing their unwashed clothes on the floor. It is important to wash clothes that have been exposed to the environment in this pandemic. However, it is not possible to comply with basic hygiene standards in Cuba.
Product shortages mirror the economic crisis
Basic hygiene products have been missing for months. Since December, there have been no sanitary towels available in many parts of the island. This shows that Cuba is in an economic crisis.
Cuba imports 82% of what it consumes. Because the regime controls production in Cuba, its citizens are dependent on state rations. Since the funding that Cuba receives from Venezuela diminished after socialism caused the collapse of the South American country’s economy, Cuba has lost its ability to pay to China. The Asian giant, on the other hand, is no longer exporting to Cuba because of the economic blow it has received from being the place of origin of the COVID-19.
The liquidity crisis on the island is due to two major shocks. One, the Trump administration ordered the closure of U.S. tourism on the island in retaliation for the complicity of the Cuban dictatorship with the socialist regime of Nicolás Maduro.
Meanwhile, the Cuban Communist Party lost an average of 33 million dollars per month —which it received in exchange for sending 11,000 doctors to Brazil— after President Jair Bolsonaro, who called the working conditions of the dictatorship “slavery,” expropriating 75% to 90% of the doctors’ salaries and not allowing them to travel with their families.
Instead of improving these working conditions, the regime chose to bring the doctors back and put their higher-income at risk. In 2016 alone, Cuban doctors working abroad produced five times more than the tourism industry. Doctors generated 11,543 billion USD annually, while tourism produced 2.8 billion USD.
In theory, Cuba is supposed to be an example of healthcare. In practice, it can neither supply basic hygiene items for its women nor provide decent working conditions for health workers.
To this day, doctors around the world take a Hippocratic oath in honor of Hippocrates, the famous physician from ancient Greece who swore in honor of Aesculapius and his sons Hygia and Panacea. Hygia was the goddess of cleanliness and healing. From her name comes hygiene. Her Roman equivalent is Salus, from her name comes health or “salud.”
Since the time before Christ, health and hygiene have been synonymous. Therefore, hand washing literally saves lives. But in the case of Cuba, something so simple is not possible for at least half a million people, which makes it clear, once again, that its health system does not provide the bare minimum.
On December 31, 2019, China notifies the World Health Organization of a string of respiratory infections in the city of Wuhan, home to some 11 million people. The root virus is unknown and disease experts around the world begin working to identify it. The strain is traced to a seafood market in the city, which is quickly shut down. Some 40 people are initially reported to be infected.
2. First death in China
On January 11, China announces the first death from the coronavirus — a 61-year-old man, who had shopped at the Wuhan market, dies from complications with pneumonia. Like SARS and the common cold, scientists identified that the new virus is in the coronavirus family. It is temporarily named 2019-nCoV. Symptoms include fever, coughing, difficulty breathing, and pneumonia.
3. Virus reaches neighboring countries
In the following days, countries such as Thailand and Japan begin to report cases of infections in people who had visited the same Wuhan market. In China, a second fatality is confirmed in the city. By January 20, three people have died in China and more than 200 are infected.
4. Millions under lockdown
China places Wuhan on quarantine on January 23 in an attempt to limit the spread of the virus. Transportation is suspended and workers attempt to quickly build a new hospital to treat infected patients, which total over 830 by January 24, as the death toll climbs to 26. Officials eventually extend the lockdown to 13 other cities, affecting at least 36 million people.
5. A global health emergency?
More and more cases are confirmed outside of China, including in South Korea, the US, Nepal, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan. As the number of infections rises, the World Health Organization on January 23 determines that it’s “too early” to declare a global public health emergency.
6. Coronavirus reaches Europe
On January 24, French authorities confirm three cases of the new coronavirus within its borders, marking the disease’s first appearance in Europe. Hours later, Australia confirms four people have been infected with the respiratory virus.
7. First cases confirmed in Germany
On January 27, Germany announces its first known case of the virus — a 33-year-old in Bavaria who contracted it during a workplace training with a visiting Chinese colleague. He is put under quarantine and observation at a Munich hospital. The following day, three of his colleagues are confirmed infected. The death toll in China reaches 132, with around 6,000 infected worldwide.
8. WHO declares global health emergency
On January 30, the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) declares coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern in a bid to protect countries with “weaker health systems.” However, WHO Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus does not recommend trade and travel restrictions, saying these would be “an unnecessary disruption.”
9. First death outside China
The first death linked to the novel coronavirus outside of China is reported in the Philippines on February 2. A 44-year-old Chinese man had traveled from Wuhan to Manila before falling ill and being taken to hospital, where he later died of pneumonia.
10. Bad ending to a cruise
Also on February 3, the cruise ship Diamond Princess is quarantined off Yokohama in Japan after cases of the new coronavirus were found on board. As of February 17, the number of people infected has grown to more than 450, the largest cluster of cases outside of China. Several of the 3,700 passengers and crew onboard the ship are being or have been flown back to their home countries.
11. Italy under quarantine
Cases in Italy rise dramatically, with 77 deaths and thousands of confirmed cases by March 3. Many countries instigate travel restrictions to northern Italy and tourist numbers plummet. On March 8, the Italian government put the entire Lombardy region into quarantine, affecting 16 million people. March 10 sees 168 fatalities in Italy, the highest in a single day.
12. Economic woes
European and US stock markets slump on March 6, leading to the worst week since the 2008 financial crisis. The effect on global business has been significant, with many companies reporting losses and the tourism industry and airlines badly hit. The EU pledge €7.5 billion ($8.4 billion) on March 10 in an investment fund to try to stop the Eurozone falling into a recession.
13. WHO declares outbreak as pandemic
As worldwide cases top 127,000 and deaths pass 4,700, the World Health Organization designates the global outbreak as a “pandemic” on March 11. US President Donald Trump announces a travel restriction on people coming from the Schengen Zone in Europe, annoying the EU. German Chancellor Angela Merkel announces that in Germany, 70% of the population could get the virus.
14. Public life on hold in Europe
On March 14, Spain joins Italy in imposing a near-total nationwide lockdown to prevent the virus spreading. The population of 46 million is told not to leave their homes unless for essential tasks. In France, cafés, restaurants and non-essential shops are closed as of March 15. Many public events in Germany are cancelled and schools close.
15. International travel severely restricted
As of March 15, many countries impose strict travel bans or restrictions in an attempt to stop the spread of Covid-19. For example, New Zealand and Australia require all international passengers to self-isolate for 14 days after arrival in the country. The US extends a European travel ban to include the United Kingdom and Ireland.
16. Germany imposes partial lockdown
In a landmark televised address German Chancellor Angela Merkel announces far-reaching restrictions on everyday life on March 22, banning meetings between more than two people not from the same household outside of the workplace. The country has a surprisingly low death rate, a phenomenon attributed to a high level of testing, and a high number of intensive care beds.
17. Virus strikes at top as UK locks down
On March 23rd Britain becomes the latest country to impose restrictions on personal freedoms, with people only allowed to leave their homes in a limited number of circumstances. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is diagnosed with the viruson March 27, as well as heir to the throne Prince Charles on March 25. Meanwhile, there are complaints that not everyone is taking social distancing seriously.
18. Grim milestone for the US
On March 27 the US overtakes China in terms of the number of people infected, making it the country with the most cases of COVID-19. This came as President Donald Trump claimed that the nation would get back to work “pretty quickly.” At the same time, it emerged that more than 3 million Americans had lost their jobs due to the pandemic. New York is worst-hit, with a hospital ship sent to help out.
19. Spain’s surging death toll
Spain also overtakes China in the number of COVID-19 cases on March 30, as the government toughens the severity of its lockdown. All non-essential activities are halted. Only Italy has a higher death toll than Spain. Most affected is the capital, Madrid. With funeral services overwhelmed, officials turn the Palacio de Hielo ice skating rink into a temporary morgue.
20. More than a million
On April 2nd the Johns Hopkins University announced on Thursday that there were more than a million confirmed coronavirus cases around the world. The US is the most affected with three times the number than China, where the virus emerged in December. Over 50.000 people have died — and the outlook remains grim.
21. UK PM Boris Johnson hospitalized
The 55-year-old was admitted to the intensive care unit at London’s St Thomas hospital on Monday evening (6.4.) and was given oxygen treatment after his condition worsened. He had been diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 27.
As world leaders and experts emphasize global cooperation in beating back the COVID-19 pandemic, there is growing concern that the two countries with the greatest resources are stuck in a propaganda-fueled dispute over the virus’ origin that threatens to distort science-based investigation.
China has been trying to demonstrate the prowess of its governance in beating the virus and marshaling a sturdy recovery. The US is taking every opportunity to remind the world that China is responsible for the entire mess, while deflecting attention from the deficits in its own response.
Their latest row is over US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement last Sunday asserting that there is “enormous evidence” that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a poorly regulated bio-lab in Wuhan, the city in central China where the first cases of COVID-19 were detected.
Beijing called the assertion “insane” and the World Health Organization said it was “speculative.” Intelligence agencies around the world, including in the US, have not reached any conclusions about the virus’ origin. US President Donald Trump has promised a “conclusive” report pointing to China.
“Pompeo is a known China hawk, and not a particularly credible one. But he is the US secretary of state — even if people don’t necessarily believe what he’s saying, they need to take it seriously,” said Jeffery Wright, an analyst at the US-based political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.
Wuhan goes viral
The preliminary scientific consensus is that SARS-CoV-2 formed naturally in an animal and was able to jump into humans. How this happened is under investigation.
As the lab was cooperating with two US-based research organizations, the diplomats recommended that the US government pay more attention to the lab’s “important and dangerous” work studying coronaviruses in bats and provide more assistance to address the safety concerns.
According to the Post’s reporting, the US government provided no extra assistance in response. However, after the COVID-19 pandemic began, the 2018 cables drew attention in Washington — as evidence that Chinese officials and scientists were to blame for the outbreak.
China’s lack of transparency
China’s early response to coronavirus has been widely criticized across the world. Authorities in Hubei province initially tried to cover up the outbreak in Wuhan and allowed millions of people to continue to travel. The delayed containment and mitigation measures potentially spread the pathogen further.
To its credit, China managed to contain COVID-19 in a few weeks, albeit by putting in place draconian restrictions on people’s movement and systematic quarantine regimes in cities like Wuhan.
Beijing’s propaganda apparatus has been busy touting its success story and downplaying what in January looked like a disaster for China’s carefully curated global image.
But the Chinese government’s demonstrated lack of transparency also drives a global narrative that Beijing is hiding something. This can provide fertile ground for conspiracy theories, which complicate rational analysis of where the disease came from and how it can be stopped.
“Unfortunately, we are experiencing a situation where the question of COVID-19’s origin, and the various strategies in fighting the pandemic, have become the subject of a propaganda war between the American and Chinese governments,” German sinologist Felix Wemheuer told DW.
Deflecting blame and failed diplomacy
And as the Trump administration’s response also draws widespread criticism, officials in Washington have been all too eager to point out where the virus came from.
“China could have spared the world a descent into global economic malaise. They had a choice but instead — China covered up the outbreak in Wuhan,” Pompeo said this week. “China is still refusing to share the information we need to keep people safe.”
However, despite China’s initial cover-up, the world was aware that COVID-19 was a severe threat before the full brunt of the disease reached the US. The dithering response by the Trump administration included weeks of denials and mixed messaging.
When it was clear in March that COVID-19 was spreading rapidly around the country, disjointed federal action left states to fend for themselves. The US is now the world leader in the total number of cases and deaths, although it fares better than European countries like Italy, Spain and the UK when it comes to case fatality rates.
“The political opportunity for the Republicans is that blaming the virus on China gives them a chance to deflect blame for Trump’s poor response to the crisis,” said analyst Wright. “It also gives Trump a useful enemy — his politics depend on conflict, and the virus was not a very good enemy, because it’s faceless and can’t be effectively attacked.”
The lab in question at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) drew international attention in April after the Washington Post obtained leaked cables from 2018 sent by US embassy officials in China warning of ‘safety and management weaknesses’
After some US states in April called for China to pay reparations for the impacts of the pandemic, Klaus Mühlhahn, a sinologist at the Free University in Berlin, told DW that it was a sign of escalation and failed diplomacy.
“Even during the Cold War, when there were serious illnesses, the East and the West worked and conducted research together.”
‘Science needs to be at the center’
As the pandemic gets wrapped up in politics, there is concern that investigation into the origin of SARS-CoV-2 will be skewed away from science, as the US pours resources into probing the Wuhan lab for a smoking gun that will cement claims of Chinese culpability.
“Analysts are now clearly under political pressure to ascribe to the lab theory,” said Wright.
The WHO’s emergencies chief, Michael Ryan, recently warned against politicizing the scientific investigation into the origin of SARS-CoV-2. “We can learn from Chinese scientists, we can learn from each other, we can exchange knowledge and we can find the answers together,” said Ryan, adding that scientists should be at the center of exploring where the virus came from.
“If this is projected as aggressive investigation of wrongdoing, then I believe that’s much more difficult to deal with. That’s a political issue, not a science issue,” said Ryan.
“Science needs to be at the center. Science will find the answers,” he added. “The implications of those answers can be dealt with from a policy and political perspective.”
And as political tension increases, international scientific cooperation on understanding how viruses like SARS-CoV-2 originate and proliferate also comes under pressure.
For example, in late April, the US National Institutes of Health cut funding for a project studying how coronaviruses transfer from bats to humans, because the project’s sponsor allegedly used funding to cooperate with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In January, China also temporarily closed a lab in Shanghai that first discovered the genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 after one of its scientists shared the information with colleagues around the world online. Beijing claimed the lab was closed for “rectification.”
“The new ‘Cold War’ is coming at an extremely unfavorable time. If the international community does not find a common answer to the global challenge of this and the next pandemic, the future looks bleak,” said sinologist Wemheuer.
Argentina hasn’t made a bond interest payment since February. Now, Economy Minister Martin Guzman has given the country’s biggest bondholders until Friday to accept the offer he has put on the table to suspend payments until 2023 and reduce interest rates thereafter.
One of the largest of those creditors, the investment management firm BlackRock, rejected Guzman’s proposal and immediately presented a counteroffer.
On Tuesday, Argentina’s Economy Ministry released adjusted projections for fiscal year 2020: The ministry projected that the overall economy would shrink by 6.5% and that Argentina would have a primary fiscal deficit of 3.1%. Thus, just three days ahead of the looming deadline, the government presented investors with a vastly grimmer economic prognosis than it had in April.
As elsewhere, COVID-19 has left its mark on Argentina’s economy. Yet, the country’s pending bankruptcy has been on the horizon far longer than that. When Alberto Fernandez became president in December 2019, he inherited $320 billion in debt from his predecessors, Mauricio Macri and Cristina Fernandez.
Argentina’s government debt has risen as the country has continued to take on debt and its currency, the peso, has lost value. Today, $1 is worth 67.15 pesos — it was just over 15 pesos to the dollar in early 2017.
“President Fernandez never announced it publicly, but the country was bankrupt when he took office,” said Federico Foders, professor emeritus at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy think tank. Foders said Argentina could begin piling up as much as $45 billion (€42.5 billion) in annual debt in the next few years, depending on how interest rates evolve. That would represent a full 10% of 2019 GDP: “There is no country in the world that can carry that kind of debt.”
‘Attractive to investors’
Foders, who is Argentine by birth, said nothing could stop the ninth bankruptcy in the country’s 200 years of independence and the third this millennium. Measured in terms of total volume of debt, it would also be the largest national bankruptcy in history — and let the government snatch back the ignominious top spot it had lost to Venezuela in that category two and a half years earlier. Argentina began setting such records back in 2001, when it defaulted on $132 billion in debt. That bankruptcy, after debt relief, ultimately left creditors holding $80 billion in losses.
The next bankruptcy came in 2014, when two US hedge funds sued for payment of portions of that old debt in a lawsuit heard by a US Appeals Court in New York City. The court ordered Argentina to repay the debt, but the country’s then president, Cristina Fernandez, and her Peronist government, refused to do so.
The debt was eventually paid by Fernandez’s successor, Macri. That move reopened the door for Argentina’s return to global capital markets. The situation led investors to put their faith in Macri, who sold his economic program as the polar opposite of the liberal, leftist populism of “Kirchnerism.”
Any concerns that investors might have had about Argentina’s troubled fiscal history or the turbulence of its overall economy were soon forgotten when they were offered lucrative interest rates. “Industrialized nations were in a period of low interest rates,” Foders said, “and that made it attractive to investors.”
But it wasn’t just private investors who fell for Macri’s charms. In October 2018, when Argentina’s economy had already begun to contract, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loaned Macri’s government $56.3 billion.
Disgrace for IMF
At the time, BlackRock managing director Rick Rieder was optimistic, but cautiously so. “Listen, I think Argentina has the ability to turn the corner,” he told Bloomberg News. “The support from the IMF is a very, very big deal. And that dynamic is going to play up: It’s going to take time. They got a fiscal challenge — they got an election coming up; the challenges are real.”
Foders said another default would be a huge disgrace for the IMF, which “knows exactly how the country ticks — and it also knew how much debt it was carrying.”
Still, many of the IMF’s biggest contributors saw Macri as stabilizing force in South America. As the IMF’s biggest shareholder, the US exerts enormous influence on its policies: “It was always that way, that’s no secret, says Foders, “And it’s very likely Donald Trump pressured it to give Macri the money.”
Argentina has given the IMF access to public finance records in the course of ongoing reviews of its debt sustainability and debt negotiations. On Wednesday, 138 renowned economists from 20 countries pleaded the case for creditors to be constructive in negotiations with Buenos Aires. Still, President Fernandez, whose political home is in Cristina Kirchner’s Citizen’s United Party, will not likely enjoy the same IMF favor as predecessor Macri, and private investors are just interested in the money.
The grace period on $500 million in missed interest payments runs out on May 22. If no deal can be reached by then — or payment cannot be made — Argentina will go into default.
The rainy season will cause an increase in cases of dengue and therefore it is necessary to increase prevention measures.
The head of the Metropolitan Sanitary Region of the Central District, Harry Bock, reported this Thursday that in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, there have been several cases of patients suffering from COVID-19 and dengue at the same time.
The rainy season will cause an increase in cases of dengue and therefore it is necessary to increase prevention measures.
The doctor did not specify the exact number of patients suffering from this combination, but warned that the incidence of coronavirus in the country’s capital has increased by 60%, he commented in HRN.
He explained that the rainy season will cause an increase in cases of dengue and therefore it is necessary to increase prevention measures.
“As of May 15, when the rainy season is scheduled to start, about 400 new cases of coronavirus will be registered in the capital,” Bock added.
He emphasized that the inhabitants of the capital are not following biosafety measures and that the capital could go beyond the department of Cortés in the incidence of cases due to COVID-19.
“People don’t wear masks, they don’t respect insulation and they behave as if nothing is happening. We cannot put all the people who have symptoms in a shelter because the results of the tests come out between five to seven days, so each health center is aware of face-to-face visits every day to the cases that are positive ”, the doctor concluded.
On May 8, Honduras reported 1,771 confirmed cases of covid-19 and 107 deaths.
A migrant deported from the United States wears a preventive mask against the coronavirus COVID-19 after landing at the Military Base in Guatemala City. (Photo Johan ORDONEZ / AFP)
Those who stayed face a precarious reality, with job losses, overcrowding, without access to medical. Those who return, deported, were in many cases exposed to contagion risks in prisons, detention centers and on the journey back.
A migrant deported from the United States wears a preventive mask against the coronavirus COVID-19 after landing at the Military Base in Guatemala City. (Photo Johan ORDONEZ / AFP)
The Donald Trump administration has been – in fact – exporting COVID-19 to Latin America by continuing to send flights with deported migrants to 11 countries in the region, the Center for Economic and Policy Research think tank reported.
Between March and April, ICE Air has carried out at least 21 flights with deportees to Guatemala, 18 to Honduras, 12 to El Salvador, 6 to Brazil, 3 to Nicaragua, Ecuador, Haiti and the Dominican Republic; and 1 flight each to Colombia and Jamaica. This, denounced the organization, represents a serious risk to the public health of these nations since it has been proven that many of them are infected.
“At the end of April, there were around 1,000 Salvadorans deported from the United States, in the midst of the health crisis, who have been transferred to quarantine centers for a period of 30 days, said César Ríos, the agency’s executive director. Non-governmental Salvadoran Migrant Institute (Insami).
From Guatemala, Ursula Roldán, director of the Institute for Global and Territorial Dynamic Processes and Research of the Rafael Landívar University, and member of the Jesuit Network of Migrants for Mexico, Central America and the United States, spoke in favor of stopping deportations from the United States, since they represent a serious risk to public health, as they are not certain of their health condition.
She added that, upon arrival in the country, health authorities place them in quarantine centers that test positive for COVID-19. Others are sent to home quarantine, in their own communities.
“We also criticize that decision because overcrowding prevails in rural communities. Instead, we proposed that quarantine centers be established for 21 days, to serve as shelters, and then transferred to their communities. We continue to insist with the government,” said Roldán.
136 Honduran migrants descend from a plane at the Toncontín International Airport in Tegucigalpa on April 25, 2020 after having been deported from Mexico (Photo ORLANDO SIERRA / AFP)
Deported … And Many Infected
Most flights of deported migrants, according to research by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, depart from two airports: Brownsville, Texas and Alexandria, Louisiana. The latter has been severely hit by COVID-19, as at least 11 employees have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Precisely from these facilities, they assure left the Guatemalan deportees (40), who arrived in their country and tested positive. According to a Guatemalan local media, the Minister of Health, Hugo Monroy, assured that in a single flight it was detected that 75% of the deportees were infected with the new coronavirus.
In his speech on April 28, the President of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, confirmed in a message on the national network that 81 citizens of his country infected with coronaviruses were reported in the world and 49 died outside their homeland. Of these, 48 in the United States.
Dozens of Guatemalan citizens stranded abroad are struggling to return to their homeland.
The Migrants Who Stay
For those who remain in the United States, the reality is being equally critical due to their vulnerability, in financial and health terms. The effect of unemployment on them will be severe. It is anticipated that in some sectors the loss of jobs will be enormous, in a range of 30% to 80%, since their liquid assets are limited, at most to stay six months, and unfortunately the most affected sectors will be services and industry, where the majority of the Central American migrant population works,” said Manuel Orozco, a specialist in Migration and Remittances issues at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank.
The New York Times exposed the tragedy experienced by migrants of different nationalities in New York, the epicenter of COVID-19 in the United States. In a comprehensive report, focused primarily on central Queens, it confirmed that the pandemic has undeniably disproportionately affected Latino workers, restaurant employees, and janitors, accounting for 34% of those killed in New York, the highest percentage of any racial or ethnic group.
For its part, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), rector of health in the United States, confirmed in its report last April 29 that – at that date – the number of positive cases of coronavirus exceeded one million people in that country, and of these, about 96,681 are of Hispanic / Latino origin.
“The main countries of Salvadoran migration are Italy, Spain, Canada and the United States, precisely those most affected by the pandemic. And, when reviewing the United States, where there are around 2 million Salvadorans, we can also see that the main cities where they reside have been the most impacted: New York, Maryland, Washington DC., California, Los Angeles and Houston,” said Rios.
Central American migrants are a very vulnerable sector to the COVID-19 pandemic, since the majority remain in the United States in an irregular migratory situation – illegally, they do not have work contracts, they do not have medical insurance, they do not visit medical centers. for fear of being deported and are not benefiting from unemployment benefit programs.
In addition, he pointed out that studies have confirmed that 60% of Salvadorans live in the United States with an annual budget of US$25,000, a figure that in that country considered as extreme poverty.
“In order to survive in the United States, they themselves have created survival strategies, for example, sharing the rent payment for a $2,000 monthly apartment among 12 or 13 people, living in overcrowding,” said the Salvadoran expert.
Therefore, they are living at high levels of vulnerability.
Authorities confirmed 2 cases of coronavirus COVID-19 in bus drivers. Although there is not much detail about the drivers, it is known that they employed by a bus company in Guadalupe.
The Ministry of Health asked drivers not to attend work if they present symptoms such as a sore throat, fever, difficulty breathing, loss of smell, among others.
Manuel Vega Villalobos, executive director of the Public Transport Council (CTP) expressed his concern about the case of the two bus drivers, reiterates the call made weeks ago for users and concessionaires of public transport to abide by the sanitary measures established to prevent the spread of COVID-19, even insisting on using masks.
“We know that in public transport there is a greater exposure of this disease, so the measures must be increased even more, we must be extremely hygienic and despite the fact that the passenger capacity on buses cannot be decreased, we call for users use the masks as a preventive measure, as long as they are handled correctly,” Vega said.
For the executive director of the CTP, wearing a mask on the bus or taxi will be a preventive way that together with social distancing, constant washing of hands and avoiding contact with the face, nose, eyes and mouth will be more effective.
The number of confirmed cases of covid-19 in Costa Rica reached 773 this Friday, 63 days after the detection of the first patient as a result of the new coronavirus. It is eight more cases than Thursday.
As of this Friday, the percentage of recoveries reached 60% (461 people) and active cases dropped to 312.
Hospitalization is also kept to a minimum. Of the 312 active cases, only 21 (6%) are hospitalized, of which 6 are in Intensive Care, the rest at home.
According to the epidemiological report of the Minister of Health, Daniel Salas, those affected over this time have been more men (409) than women (364).
There are 41 minors and 732 adults(39 seniors).
Among the 773 cases throughout these two months, 95 are foreigners.
Truckers from Nicaragua and Panama
The minister reported that among the new cases of contagion of covid-19 are two truckers that entered from Nicaragua through the Tablillas border post, in Los Chiles, Alajuela.
The two men remain isolated and Health confirmed “all the contacts they had in Costa Rica are located.”
The two cases came out of 230 tests that were carried out on truckers on Thursday.
On Wednesday, another trucker was detected that entered from Panama through the border post of Sixaola.
Health Minister Daniel Salas announced that as of this Friday, truckers who want to enter Costa Rica will be tested for the virus, which will mean waiting 24 to 48 hours at the borders while the result is ready.
The Immigration Police will be in charge of monitoring that there are no crowds while the truckers wait for the test result. Every day, more than 1,000 trucks pass through the Peñas Blancas border alone.
Migrant transfers
Salas also issued a warning regarding migrant transfers, saying that owners of businesses who allow transfers of migrants in their vehicles, for any reason, will see their businesses shut down.
This week, a group of migrants were found riding in a truck belonging to a local farm operator. At first it was believed the migrants had just arrived from Nicaragua, but using illegal migrant labor in the northern zone is nothing new.
“We have invested a lot to have the figures we have at the moment (relatively few positive cases of the virus) and we are all going to be vigilant of the transfer of migrants. Any businessman who favors this activity will be closed. In the inspections to be carried out, if this type of transfer is found, the activity is completely closed,” Salas said.
Border Restrictions
On Thursday, Security Minister, Micheal Soto, announced that the border restrictions will continue until June 15. This applies to all borders – land, sea and air.
Tourists will continue to be prohibited entrance to the country, only Costa Ricans and residents may enter, and be subject to a 14-day mandatory quarantine.
Residents who left the country after March 23 will are prohibited from re-entering during the national emergency. And residents found entering the country illegally will lose their immigration status.
In Panama, 1,000 extra-continental migrants are stranded seeking to travel overland to the United States. On Thursday, Security Minister Michael Soto was clear that they will not allow the 1,000 extra-continental migrants on the Panama side of the border.
Measures to reactive the economy
The Health Minister pointed out that department stores have their operating permit revoked this Saturday (May 9) and Sunday (May 10) and security will monitoring compliance.
“On Monday we will announce the measures that are going to be lifted for the following weeks,” he said.
From a Facebook post by Britt Nelson: Day 53. Let’s just cut to the chase. Jaco’s City Park is closed to innocent dog walkers. Parents with children are forbidden in the playground. Around town, several restaurant/bars are open Monday through Friday with restrictions, but must close Saturday and Sunday.
I call BS. Church services are still cancelled. More BS. Our beloved Pacific Ocean beach front is still closed to surfers, no morning walks holding hands with your lover as the surf licks your toes, no heading to the beach at the end of day for a spectacular sunset. I call BS.
After two months of monitoring all the virus stats there still are only 6 dead, mostly elderly folks from the Central Valley. There are a few scattered virus cases here and there around the canton Garabito, but not enough to close the town into chaos. There never was! I call BS!
Costa Rica did what it did to be safe, well … the time has come to let Jaco Beach cut lose and allow the healing to begin. Enough is enough. There’s a lot of hurtin’ going on.
However, opening Costa Rica to incoming airline flights from around the world is a whole other ball game with many variables and this threat needs to be taken seriously. Incoming flights have been delayed until at least June 15.
But locally, the time has come for Jaco to yell from the rooftops “We Are Open for Business.” Rollback all the restrictions to pre-virus days.
You want to stay home, wearing your mask being afraid of others, fine – that’s your freedom to do so. But for the rest of us let’s pick up the pieces and walk into the future best we can as soon as we can. Rebuilding won’t be easy, but what’s the alternative?
Help your neighbor, wash your hands, and remember our God loves us all.
Playas del Coco, in Guanacaste, resurrected humanity’s oldest method of payment: barter. The residents of that community opted to reduce the use of money and take advantage of their abilities to cope with the pandemic caused by the covid-19.
The idea comes from Marie DeFlandre, a French woman who has lived in Playas del Coco for two years. She worked in a hotel and, like several of her relatives, she was left without a job due to the closure of these places and shops linked to the tourist sector on the coast, according to La Voz de Guanacaste.
