QCOSTARICA – For now, it appears unlikely that the government sees it necessary to tighten the sanitary measures for Semana Santa (Easter Week) from March 29 to April 4.
In recent weeks, there has been an improvement seen in the number of new daily infections and deaths from Covid-19. Hospitalizations have also remained steady at the low levels.
To impose new, tougher, restrictions, at the end of the month “we would have to have an exponential increase in cases,” explained the president of the National Emergency Commission (CNE), Alexander Solís.
On Tuesday, March 9, Solis provided an update on the evolution of the pandemic in the country, indicating that only 14 (of the 82) cantons in the country are still under an “orange” alert.
They are:
- Puntarenas province: Corredores, Coto Brus, Garabito, Golfito, Parrita, Quepos
- Limon province: Guácimo, Limón center, Matina, Siquirres
- Heredia province: Flores, Belén
- Alajuela province: Alajuela center, Grecia
However, all of the cantons of the provinces of San José, Cartago, and Guanacaste are under yellow alert, a number dropping from orange alert last week, which means an improvement in the contagion figures.
In fact, this is also the first time in 8 months that all the cantons, including Costa Rica’s capital city, of the province of San Jose are under yellow alert.
“A very complex situation would have to happen in the next 2 weeks so that extremely urgent measures have to be taken,” explained Solis.
The current vehicular restrictions, which, based on the foregoing, are expected to continue into Semana Santa are: total vehicular restrictions across the country from 11:00 pm to 5:00 am (only vehicles under the well-known exemptions are permitted to circulate).
The weekday restrictions (Monday to Friday) apply only in the downtown area of San Jose, based on the last digit of the license plates. See full details here.
The epidemiological report
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Health provided the latest epidemiological report on the pandemic for the past several days.
On Saturday, March 6, there were 416 new infections confirmed; 216 on Sunday, March 7; 188 on Monday, March 8: and 372 cases for Tuesday, March 9.
The accumulated total since the first confirmed case on March 6, 2020, is now 207,832.
A total of 188,151 people (91%) have recovered, and 16,833 (8) are still active.
Two unfortunate deaths were reported on Saturday, three on Sunday, three on Monday and seven on Tuesday, reaching a total of 2,848 deaths related to COVID-19: 1,063 women and 1,785 men, with an age range of two to 101 years. By age, they are 879 adults, 1,965 seniors, and four minors.
244 people are hospitalized, 139 of them in intensive care with an age range of one to 96 years.
As we reported on Monday, the reports will now be weekly (on Tuesdays), however, we will have available the daily numbers which can be found here.
