Guatemala faces fifth wave of Covid-19 with little vaccination

On June 27, Health Minister Francisco Coma confirmed that the country is experiencing a new escalation in daily cases due to the impact of new sub-strains of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which is much more contagious, which, he emphasized, is causing a high demand for swabs.

One of the still crowded places in this capital is Campo Marte, where passengers in vehicles can wait about two hours and who arrive on foot find queues of two blocks, if there is no interruption due to lack of supplies.

Last week’s statistics once again recalled the worst days of the pandemic with numbers ranging between 3,000 and 5,000 positives from June 27 to July 2.

Coma said that the increase in the demand for tests to detect Covid-19 is a trend not only in urban centers, and called on residents to take extreme biological security measures, in particular, the use of a mask in both open and closed spaces in order to condition municipalities in red (maximum alert). ).

The official also extended the recommendation for places in orange and yellow (high and medium alerts, respectively).

In contrast to the high demand for tests these days, vaccination centers seem empty despite the campaign of the Ministry of Public Health and Social Aid (Mspas) on both government channels and their social networks on Facebook and Twitter.

The concern is that the majority of hospitalized patients with moderate and severe symptoms have not been vaccinated or have not completed the two-dose schedule, the health department chief warned, more than 80 percent, according to studies. On Tuesday, President Alejandro Giamatti emphasized the need for Guatemalans to go to more than 700 immunization centers across the country to prevent the disease from spreading.

“We have vaccines and vaccines, what is not there is the will of the people to get the full scheme,” he insisted to the media in a statement held at the National Palace of Culture.

According to the latest update of the health alert panel or traffic light, more than 90 percent of the area is currently orange and yellow; Meanwhile, they are adding up to 6.3 million people with just two doses of anti-Covid-19 biological agents out of a target population of over 16 million.

Since entering the disease here on March 3, 2020, there have been a cumulative 922,340 cases and 18,628 deaths.

JCM / mm