PAHO: Several Latin American countries report a thousand cases of covid per day

What does Latin America need for a covid-19 passport?

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(CNN) -

“Today more than ever, more Latin American countries report more than 1,000 cases of covid-19 a day.

And our hospitals are more full than ever, ”said Dr. Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) on Wednesday.

“During the last week, more than 1.3 million people were infected with covid-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean, and more than 36,000 died from complications related to covid,” Etienne assured during the weekly PAHO briefing on Wednesday.

"Almost 40% of all global COVID-19 deaths reported last week took place right here in our region," he added.

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Puerto Rico and Cuba remain "important drivers of covid cases" in the Caribbean, while Guatemala suffers significant spikes in cases and Costa Rica reports a record of infections in Central America, Etienne explained.

In both countries (Guatemala and Costa Rica), hospitals are full of patients, most of them under 70 years of age, added the Director of PAHO.

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"Cases are accelerating in the Guyanas and in Argentina and Colombia, where weekly case counts are five times higher than at this time last year," Etienne told reporters, adding that prevention has not been efficient and we are seeing the consequences after the measures were relaxed.

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Health systems are saturated, according to Etienne, with ICUs throughout the region not only filled with the elderly, but also with the young.

"In recent months, hospitalization rates among those under 39 increased by more than 70% in Chile," said the PAHO director.

"In Brazil, the largest increases in hospitalizations have occurred among people in their 40s," Etienne said, while the country's death rate has doubled among those under 39, quadrupled among those aged 40 and over. it has tripled among those of 50 between December 2020 and March 2021.

Etienne praised the region's efforts to expand hospital capacity during 2020: “Colombia, Panama and the Dominican Republic doubled their ICU bed capacity, while Chile and Peru tripled theirs and Mexico and Honduras almost quadrupled their capacities in just one anus".

However, the PAHO director warned, hospitals are "dangerously full"

"If infections continue to increase at this rate, we hope that during the next three months, the countries of our region will need to maintain and even further increase the capacity of beds in the ICU," said Etienne.

Covid-19