Authorities urge people to practice healthy precautionary measures to avoid the covid-19

Published Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Authorities urge people to practice
healthy precautionary measures
to avoid the covid-19

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The people in this country must make a bigger effort to apply sanitary measures to slow down the exponential growth of new cases of covid-19, said Social Security on Monday.

A contained process of new infections will make it possible to continue with the response capacity of health services, according to the public health institution.

The quick increase in cases in recent weeks is already putting pressure on the patient care system where it would collapse social security services within a few weeks, said Mario Ruiz- Cubillo, a Social Security manager.

According to Ruiz, the capacity of medical attention would be compromised if more than 250 new cases of covid-19 are detected per day.

Social Security records and observes the daily capacity of the hospital network versus the situation of the covid-19 pandemic in the country. "We are analyzing and making timely decisions related to the capacity of medical services," Ruiz said.

According to statistics provided by Social Security, within the first 83 days since the virus was detected in the country, the institution reported 1,000 cases of infected people. But it took only 21 days to reach the second group of a thousand more cases. This means that in the country, new cases have increased by 10 times since the first cases.

The testing ratio changed quickly too. Regarding diagnostic tests, at the start of the pandemic, 1 positive diagnosis was obtained by every 6 negative ones. But in June the ratio changed from 1 positive diagnosis to 3 negative diagnoses, quickly affecting hospitals.

A total of 44,847 patients were treated in hospitals so far, 28,382 were treated in emergency rooms, 15,690 in doctors rooms, 767 people required hospitalization and 2,555 have been patients infected with covid-19.

Of the people who required hospitalization, 132 were treated in the recovery room and 43 were admitted to Intensive Care Units, ICU.

According to Ruiz, people in recovery rooms lasted an average of 8.7 days hospitalized, while hospitalization in intensive care units lasted an average of 16.4 days.

In patients who have required hospitalization, chronic diseases are predominant such as hypertension, diabetes, smoking and obesity.

"The intensive care units are highly sensitive in the response to the pandemic that involves highly specialized human and technological resources, however, in a scenario of an uncontrolled increase in cases, it would collapse in a few weeks, according to the analysis of bed capacity," Social Security said in its statement.

According to Social Security, in public hospitals, there are 477 beds exclusively reserved for covid-19 patients, of which 430 are available and 2,713 beds in recovery rooms, of which 773 are available.

People must understand the importance of applying hygiene measures, the social distancing of 1.8 meters, and the use of face masks to avoid the increase of covid-19 infections, and not overwhelming the public health service, said the Social Security in its statement. "If we unite and abide by sanitary prevention measures, we can slow down the appearance of new cases," Ruiz said.

Health authorities face a fast increase in positive cases of infected patients.

On Monday, the Ministry of Health provided the following statistics of the status of the virus in the country:

• 139 new cases of patients infected with covid-19, bringing the total to 1,860 active cases.

• The ages of infected patients range from a three-month-old baby to a 94-year-old person.

• Of the 3,269 people infected since March, 899 are foreigners. That is approximately 27% of the total cases.

• 40 patients are being treated in public hospitals, where 36 are in recovery rooms, and 4 are in ICU, with delicate health conditions. Most of the infected patients are quarantined in their homes.

• 1,394 coronavirus patients have fully recovered. That is equal to 42% of the total of cases.

• 28,757 people have been ruled out.

• 41,067 medical covid-19 tests have been made.

• 15 deaths have been reported from patients infected with covid-19 since March, six women and nine men.

The updated number of total patients in each district can be reached at the National Distance Education University on its Covid-19 Map.

As of Tuesday morning, the pandemic has killed 505,218 patients worldwide, according to recent statistics reported by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

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