Colombia continues to rise in daily deaths from covid-19
The Ministry of Health and Social Protection released the most recent report of covid-19 in the country, showing a significant increase in the number of deaths . In total, 217 fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours, a figure not seen since August 2 (232) , in the midst of the third peak of the pandemic.
The number of new cases was 26,087 , which represents a decrease of almost two thousand infections compared to the previous report; in contrast, 25,474 people recovered . Compared to the number of samples carried out, the National Institute of Health (INS) reported 68,610, with which there was an increase of more than 20,000 tests. Of the global amount, 26,136 corresponded to PCR tests, and 20,629 to antigens .
With these figures, the country reached 5,714,092 confirmed cases, including more than 5,400,000 recovered, 31,580,150 processed samples, 147,075 active infections and 132 thousand deaths .
The number of fatalities represents an alert in the national territory, taking into account that, as the Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz , has commented, a new peak of the virus product of the omicron variant is entering. This has triggered the number of cases considering that the level of contagion is 5 to 10 times higher, although less deadly than the delta variant.
Taking into account the 217 cases of deaths, among the regions of the country with the highest mortality were Valle del Cauca (54), Antioquia (30), Bogotá (21), Santander (14) and Norte de Santander (11). At the end of August, the country entered a period of few fatalities, with averages of a maximum of 60. However, when the first omicron infections were detected, at the end of December , the figures have grown.
At the level of Latin America , Colombia is the third country with the highest number of deaths from coronavirus : the first is Brazil (623,191), followed by Peru (204,141). Further behind are Argentina (119,103), Chile (39,497) and Ecuador (34,279).
The unvaccinated, the focus of omicron
The arrival of this strain has implied that the health authorities send a special call for people who are not yet vaccinated, who have a high probability of aggravating their health condition. The Ministry of Health, through the Epidemiology Directorate , announced that the risk of hospitalization and subsequent death increases with age, especially if no dose of the biological has been received.
"In all the age groups analyzed, this higher risk is consistently observed in unvaccinated people, which varied between 3 to 6 times , during the month of December," said Julián Hernández, director of Epidemiology.
According to the latest report from the Ministry of Health, as of January 21, Colombia is close to reaching 70 million doses applied (69,789,455). Of these, 34,069,829 are part of the first doses; 25,077,406 to seconds; 5,038,247 in booster doses; and 5,603,973 in single-dose. Already the number of completed schemes exceeded 30 million inhabitants.
“The best vaccine is the one that is available” , stated Gerson, Bermont , director of Promotion and Prevention, during a Unified Command Post (PMU) in La Dorada, Caldas. The official pointed out that the goal of the national government is to reach 80% of first doses by January 30 . “We cannot relax. Ómicron is a very fast variant and the answer we have is to be faster in the Vaccination Plan , to return to our application history”, he added.
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