Covid-19 patients shelters cost $151,000-plus monthly

The shelters are installed in 41 cantons of the country which remain in quarantine, with more than 10,000 people and in need
of medical attention. - National Emergencies Commission courtesy photo -

Published Friday, August 21, 2020

Covid-19 patients shelters
cost $151,000-plus monthly

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Authorities have sanctioned 118 shelters throughout the country with the intention to attend people suspected of having been infected with covid-19, as well as people infected with the virus, the National Emergencies Commission said on Thursday.

The provision of shelters and the costs related to the care of people in quarantine has cost $151,192 per month, the Commission said in its statement.

According to the Commission, the shelters were installed with the support of the municipalities of each community as well as the Ministry of Public Education.

The shelters are installed in 41 cantons of the country which remain in quarantine, with more than 10,000 people and in need of medical attention.

The people who are in the shelters are patients who do not have the minimum sanitary conditions at home to be able to comply with the sanitary order imposed by the Ministry of Health, the Commission said in its statement.

Currently, the Commission has 203 more shelters available, which are located in 55 cantons throughout the country. Those were designed to attend almost 15,000. These shelters were created to provide a safe place to people who have been affected by landslides or floods caused by overflowing rivers during the rainy season.

Also, the Commission enabled six additional shelters, in the provinces of San José and Cartago, to assist 189 homeless people.

All the shelters have garbage collection services, personal hygiene areas, cleaning in common areas, laundry, security at all times, meals three times a day, as well as medical transfer of patients in and out of the shelters by Red Cross paramedics.

According to the Commission, thanks to the free medical care received in the shelters, 192 people have recovered.

Sanctioning additional shelters is vital in the fight against covid-19, which continues to advance resulting in more deaths in the country.

As of Thursday afternoon, the Ministry of Health provided the following statistics on the status of the virus in the country:

• 666 new covid-19 cases, bringing the total to 20,803 active cases. The ages of patients infected range from a three-month-old baby to a 100-year-old person.

• 7,764 foreign-born people have been infected of the 31,075 cases since March, approximately 25% of the total cases.

• 410 patients are being treated in public hospitals, where 128 patients are in Intensive Care Units with delicate health conditions, 282 patients are in recovery rooms. Most of the infected patients are quarantined in their homes.

• 9,939 coronavirus patients have fully recovered, which is a 32% recovery rate.

Regarding the low percentage of recovery of cases, the ministry confirmed an approximate 40% delay in the statistics of recovered patients from the northern and southern zones of the country.

It is expected that during this week, the authorities will provide updated data on the number of patients recovered from covid-19

• 81,437 people have been ruled out.

• 136,337 medical covid-19 tests have been made.

• 333 deaths of patients infected with covid-19 since March, approximately 1% death rate. Of these 125 were women and 208 men. The ages range from 21 to a 99-year-old person.

On July 30, authorities reported 30 foreign-born people had died from covid-19 since March, at the time it was 22% of virus-related deaths. However, the ministry confirmed that they will not continue providing information on the number of foreign-born people who die from covid-19 in the country.

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

As of Thursday night, the pandemic has killed 793,710 patients worldwide, according to recent statistics reported by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

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