Through June 29, Costa Rica has registered 3,269 cases of Covid-19; in this past week the country had the highest new numbers of cases since the first patient was confirmed in the country back in March. The number of deaths in the country is up to 15, and through yesterday Costa Rica also registered its highest number of hospitalized patients: 40, out of which 4 are in the intensive care unit.

“The increase in the number of cases throughout the last few weeks is already putting pressure over the health care system, and an exponential increase of cases would collapse the intensive care services in just a few weeks”, explained Mario Ruiz Cubillo, Medical Manager of the Social Security Service (CCSS).

Ruiz warned that “the capacity if the number of cases continues to increase, will exhaust the moment we reach more than 250 cases a day”. “Once again we are clear on this, no health system in the world, not ours, or any other, can take an exponential increase in cases”, he continued.

Information provided by the health authorities showed that it took the country 83 days to reach the first 1000 cases, it only took 21 days to reach the next 1000, and only 1 week to reach 3000.

Back in April, the number of positive tests was of 1 positive for every 6 negatives while by June 27 the ratio was of 1 positive test for every 3 negatives.

“One the sensitive numbers that must be considered and that weights over the capacity of beds available are the number of days that a patient remains hospitalized, while in regular hospital bed patients are spending 8.7 days in average, in the ICU they are spending in average 16.4 days”.

The public hospitals in the country have available 477 regular beds that are exclusive for Covid-19 positive patients, this number could be increased by using beds reserved for other conditions by as much as 2,713; however, this means that it would reduce the attention for patients with other health situations.

In ICU the system has 257 beds, out of which 24 are exclusive for Covid-19 patients and 111 could eventually be used for this purpose if needed.

Projections carried out by the experts show that with 462 cases a week (66 daily) the capacity would be compromised, reaching 75% of the occupation which translates into 18 patients in the ICU by the third week.

With 615 cases a week (88 a day) the Covid-19 exclusive beds would be at full capacity.

“We are conscious of the tiredness and the difficult situation that many families are facing, but we have to gather strength to save as many lives as possible”, concluded Ruiz.