Costa Rica registers the highest number of coronavirus infections due to omicron

The authorities of Costa Rica reported this Saturday that for next week it is projected that the daily number of new cases of covid-19 will exceed 5,000 due to the omicron variant, a figure not seen in the pandemic so far and that requires having a patient care plan ready.

“Due to the enormous capacity to produce new infections, the number of people who could require hospitalization either in living room beds, in intensive care or die, can be considerably high before a large number of affected people,” he said in a conference. press the president of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS), Román Macaya.

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With the exponential growth of contagions of the fourth wave in the last two weeks, Macaya said that the projection is that by next week the number of new cases per day will exceed 5,000, something that had not been observed before, since the maximum had been just over 3,000 per day .

The authorities confirmed this Saturday that omicron, detected in Costa Rica on December 19, it has already displaced delta as the predominant variant in the country.

The contagion rate reached 2.12 on January 1, which means that 100 sick people infect 212, the highest rate that has been recorded so far.

Macaya announced that the institution has a patient care plan in place, anticipating an increase in seriously ill patients, which has not occurred so far.

This strategy allows an expansion of care services and bed capacity according to what is needed.

The CCSS has an optimal capacity of 271 intensive care beds and 948 lounge beds for covid-19 care.

On Friday there were 180 people admitted to medical centers due to covid-19, of which 51 were in intensive care units, according to official information.

The Ministry of Health reported 3,153 new cases and two deaths on Friday, but without a strong increase in hospitalizations at the moment.

The authorities attribute the low number of hospitalized patients to the advance of vaccination, which, with updated information as of January 3, covers 92.5% of the target population (people over 12 years of age) with the first dose and 83% with the second dose. .

Regarding third doses, coverage reaches 8.9% and only first responders and people over 58 years of age are being placed.

However, the authorities have warned that the higher the number of infections, the more likely the health services will be under pressure.

So far in the pandemic, Costa Rica, a country of 5.1 million inhabitants, has accumulated 584,547 infections and 7,372 deaths.

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Deshawn