Half of the Colombian capital, Bogotá, will have to remain confined five days longer than expected in order to curb the spread of Covid-19, city mayor Claudia Lopez announced on Monday January 11.
"More than four million people"
in the capital will continue
"a strict quarantine throughout the week,"
said Claudia Lopez at a press conference.
Read also: Covid-19: curfew and confinement, Colombia strengthens its restrictions
More than 30 of Colombia's 50 million people have been under reinforced containment since Thursday, initially scheduled to last until Tuesday.
These measures have stabilized the number of new daily infections but the virus continues to circulate at high speed, maintaining intensive care services under great pressure, explained Claudia Lopez.
“Between January 1 and January 10, we went from an occupancy rate of 75.5% in intensive care units to 91.5%”
, according to the councilor.
Unconfined areas remain subject to curfews and other restrictions.
Read also: Covid-19: Colombia approves Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine
Bogotá, which has nearly 8 million inhabitants, concentrates 29% of the 1.8 million cases of contamination recorded in Colombia, where the disease has killed more than 46,000 to date.
The government, anxious to preserve the economy, has decided not to impose new national confinement.
"This would be really unthinkable when we know how much it has effects on poverty," said the vice-president of the country, Marta Lucia Ramirez, in an interview with the Colprensa agency.
The start of the vaccination campaign is scheduled for February.
The government has acquired doses for 29 million people from Pfizer / BioNTech, Janssen and AstraZeneca laboratories, as well as through the Covax device, set up by the World Health Organization (WHO) in favor of the poorest countries .
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