Pablo Sigal
07/15/2020 - 20:43
- Clarín.com
- Society
Argentina overcame the barrier of two thousand deaths from coronavirus: with this Wednesday's record of 82 deaths, they reached 2,050 . However, as the pandemic progresses, the lethality is decreasing. That is, basically, the most relevant fact of the coronavirus drama in the country . At least for the moment, the Covid has had not-so-evil consequences here. More and more mild cases are being recorded , which at the same time require less attention in intensive care in hospitals.
The vast majority of newly infected people can carry the disease at home or in an isolation center. Between 1,000 and 2,000 deaths, the death rate fell from 2.43 percent to 1.84 percent . This is an advance: every 10 thousand people today die 184, when before they died 243. At the worst moment, on May 4, 536 people died for every ten thousand infected registered.
On June 21, Argentina had reached 1,000 deaths in 108 days since the start of the local pandemic on March 3. Doubling that number now took less than a quarter of the time, 24 days, but the good news is that in the same period, the number of registered infections grew much more, 170 percent, from 41,204 to almost 111,160. Only this Wednesday 4,250 were added.
If the doubling time is broken down from the beginning, there is another encouraging fact : getting from 1,000 to 2,000 dead took just one day less than what it took from 500 (on May 27) to 1,000: 25 days . Going from 250 deaths (on May 4) to 500 took 23 days . And going from 125 (on April 18) to 250 took just 16 days . In the previous duplication, since April 8 (65 deaths), 10 days had elapsed . The first 35 days of the pandemic, 60 deaths were claimed.
Of the total deaths, 49.24 percent took place in the province of Buenos Aires; 37.5 percent in the City ; 5.89 percent in Chaco; 2.44 percent in Río Negro. The remaining 4.93 percent occurred in the other 21 provinces. There are 9 that do not register deaths : Catamarca, Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Formosa, San Juan, San Luis, La Pampa, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego.
The average age of the dead did not vary too much with respect to the first 1,000. He is 73 years old . In the case of men, it is 70 and in the case of women, 76. Of the total, 58.2 percent were men and 41.8 percent were women.
The scenario of relative “lightness” of Argentine coronavirus sufferers means that the demand for intensive therapies does not suffer uncontrollable stress . The number of internees in these highly complex units grows slowly, although it remains the sensitive target to pay attention to. From last Saturday to Wednesday, there were 81 more patients hospitalized by Covid throughout the country . More than 90 percent are from the AMBA.
The general occupation of intensive therapies -for any pathology-, grew: last Saturday it was 58.2 percent in the AMBA and now it was 63.7. Nationally, they went from 51.2 percent to 53.7. This is the data that matters most to the authorities when making a decision about the easing of quarantine: what is the capacity of the hospital system to contain new patients.
Coronavirus deaths in Argentina
Source: Ministry of Health Infographic: Clarín
The Buenos Aires Minister of Health, Daniel Gollán, who until a few days ago was one of the most orthodox defenders of the hard quarantine, this Wednesday was much more confident in the possibility of a reasonable opening and was based precisely on the data on the beds of intensive therapy: "The hospitalized patients do not grow as much as the number of cases." That, as explained in statements to Telefé, is what allows us to review the degree of mandatory isolation that is needed in the metropolitan area.
On the other hand, the number of discharges (healed people) stabilized after hitting a jump of 10 percentage points in recent days. It continues at 44 percent. A figure still low with respect to the global average, which is 58.4 percent. The increase in Argentina was mainly due to the implementation of a new algorithm in the database of the National Ministry of Health. The mathematical nuance reflects the fact that for the lightly ill it is no longer necessary to perform a PCR test to discharge them. They are considered cured 10 days after the onset of symptoms.
According to national and AMBA authorities, Argentina is going through the peak of the pandemic at the moment. The peak, in any case, is not something that lasts a day. The idea of "mountain peak" as a simple vertex is rather the lag of a children's drawing. The surface of that summit has a few square meters and you have to go through it before you start to go down.
The number of daily cases had stabilized at an average of 3,600 per day since the beginning of July and until this Tuesday, with an increasing gap between the City and the Province of more than double each day. Now the limit of 4,000 has been exceeded and it will be necessary to see how the curve behaves in the coming days.
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