QCOSTARICA – Joselyn Chacón, who will be the Minister of Health as of May 8, announced within minutes of being officially named to the position by president-elect Rodrigo Chaves, that the mandatory use of masks in closed spaces will be maintained at the beginning of the next administration.
On Friday, the president-elect announced the names of ten of his ministers, including Chacón, during a noon press conference.
Chacón, who replaces Dr. Daniel Salas, assured that the elimination of the mask could be a gradual process, by sectors or spaces. “Later, we can analyze the complete elimination, but not at the moment,” emphasized Chacón, who was Chaves’ campaign manager in the second-round elections.
“It is a transition process, first you have to check how everything is; the wave continues after Semana Santa. The (use of the) mask at this time continues, it depends on the continuation of the virus and it depends on the analysis that we do scientifically, but it is something that can most certainly be eliminated,” she added.
On Thursday, the Universidad Hispanoamericana (UH) reported the covid-19 contagion rate at 0.64. This means that a group of 100 people with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes covid-19, would have transmitted it to 64 people.
The UH now reports the contagion rate every two weeks instead of the weekly report it has been providing since the beginning of the pandemic. For the first two weeks of April (2 to 16), the contagion rate was 0.91.
Also, the Ministry of Health reports that the weekly daily average decreased to new 300 cases, which represents 234 fewer infected than 15 days ago; in percentage terms, it means a decrease of 43.82%. It is the lowest of the last 11 weeks.
In its latest weekly report of April 19, the Ministry of Health reports the total number of contagion of covid-19 in Costa Rica, since the first case in March 2020, is 847,784 of which 829,515 (98%) have recuperated and an accumulated 8,383 (1%) deaths.
