Costa Rica faces health catastrophe

Costa Rica is on the verge of the worst health catastrophe in its history due to Covid-19, said Mario Ruiz, medical manager of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS), in charge of public health on Saturday, April 24 when the highest number of daily infections of Covid-19 was registered with a total of 1,830. The youngest person to date was also hospitalized: a 19-year-old woman.

In an extraordinary press conference, held virtually and with the presence of the President of the Republic, Carlos Alvarado, the medical manager of the CCSS said that all medical centers in the country are on alert.

This is because the number of people who need to be hospitalized for Covid-19 continues to increase, to the point of being very close to saturating the intensive care units (ICU), in which there are 303 patients as of Saturday.

The maximum number of beds available in the ICU is 359, and out of every 5 people hospitalized for Covid-19, two have required intensive care.

Faced with this reality, Ruiz asked the population to avoid the collapse of the Costa Rican health system, increase biosecurity measures, as well as avoid leaving home unless strictly necessary.

President Alvarado joined the request. “We are facing a situation that calls us to redouble protection measures to contain between all and all the curve of cases that continues to grow,” said the president.

After Holy Week, when the country registered an average of 400 daily cases, the cases tripled in less than three weeks, Ruiz explained.

Given this accelerated increase in a sustained way, it is materially impossible to meet the demand for severe covid patients and other pathologies that also compromise people’s lives, he added.

Since the first patient hospitalized for Covid-19 in the country, critical moments have been experienced, Ruiz said. The first was in September 2020 (627 patients), the second in December 2020 (644 patients), and this week 662 hospitalizations were registered, projecting to be the most critical of all the moments experienced to date.