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The official report of the pandemic delivered by health authorities every afternoon marked 2,229 new cases of coronavirus yesterday in the department of Antioquia, which not only topped the national table of daily infections, Rather, it was 30 percent more than those registered in Bogotá, the focus of the pandemic.
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And although it is a record of a single day, it serves to illustrate the growth in the numbers that Antioquia has shown in recent weeks, the same that led to last Thursday, after three days during which the occupation of beds of Intensive Care Units (ICU) remained above 80 percent, the Government declared a hospital red alert.
The measure, which restricts some health services such as surgeries or other non-urgent procedures, had already been used at the end of July, in the so-called first peak.
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As of Friday, that department It reached 151,420 people diagnosed, representing 15.15 percent of all officially detected cases in the country. Of these, 2,963 inhabitants of the region have died, that is, one in 10 deaths from this cause in Colombia.
But beyond these numbers, what is worrying is that since the end of July, Antioquia showed a decrease in cases, which served to lower the national curve of the pandemic, along with Bogotá and Cali. It is worth remembering that at the time the department and its capital, Medellín, were considered as a national example in handling the emergency.
And four weeks ago a rebound in infections started in this region, and proof of this is that so far in October, the department has shown a 29.5 percent increase in cases compared to the last week of September. In October, as if that were not enough, one in five of the deaths accumulated in the department by covid-19 has been presented.
Undoubtedly, one of the most worrying indicators in this new stage of the emergency is the level of occupancy of intensive care beds. The department has managed to double its capacity of these services in this time, going from 520 in February to 1,185 today, but of the 945 destined only to covid-19, 770 are already occupied, that is, 81.48 percent, according to the Sectional Secretary of Health.
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When taking a look around the different cities, Medellín went from 618 daily cases on average in the last week of September to 901 in the last week, which gives it a growth of 46 percent. In the capital of the department there are 615 ICU beds and 86.99 percent (535) are occupied.
Envigado increased 53 percent in the daily average of cases, also when comparing the last week of September with the third of October, and today it has 75 percent occupancy in its ICUs.
Rionegro grew 50.6 percent in the daily average of cases in that period and its ICU occupancy is 93.02 percent. And there are cases with overflowing growth on average, despite scarce absolute numbers, such as La Estrella, which increased positively by 144 percent in this indicator.
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In the last month, to top it off, the general occupancy of the ICU for covid-19 in the department has grown by 10 percent, and in municipalities such as Itagüí and Bello, the availability of these services is less than 10 percent.
While these increases are dramaticIt is striking that the fatality rate of the department is 2 percent, below the national average, which today stands at 2.99 percent. Medellín is at 1.9 percent in this indicator, in contrast to Turbo, which has a 6.2 percent fatality rate.
The truth is that Antioquia is a typical case of a flattening of the decline curve with a tendency to project itself as a second peak that is already worrying.
HEALTH UNIT
