[ad_1]
This Saturday, Colombia officially reached one million people confirmed with covid-19, after adding 8,769 new cases in the last hours and after seven months after that March 6, when the first contagion was known in the country. In addition, Colombia also reached 30,000 deaths from the virus.
And although the active cases are a little more than 68,000, the country officially became the eighth nation in the world to overcome the barrier of one million cases, surpassed by the United States, with more than eight million cases; India, with more than seven million infections; Brazil, with more than five million; Russia, with more than 1,400,000 cases; and France, Argentina and Spain, which are close to 1,100,000 total infections, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
And the figure could be worrying, taking into account that Colombia took five months to reach half a million cases, a figure that was reached on August 19. While it took at least two months and a week to reach a million cases. What do these data tell us about the progress of the pandemic?
According to Jorge Cuellar, epidemiologist and professor at the Universidad del Bosque School of Nursing, the number increased exponentially in a shorter period of time, due to the end of the restrictive measures with which the country came. With the reactivation, the transmission of the virus grew, the use of public transport increased and more sectors reopened that led to reaching one million infections in a much shorter time.
You can read: Colombia exceeded one million positive cases and reached 30,000 deaths from covid-19 this Saturday
Luis Jorge Hernández, epidemiologist, doctor of public health and epidemiological director of the Covida project at the University of the Andes, thinks in the same vein. The specialist explains that the quarantine functioned as a dam that contained the pandemic for a time, but could not contain it forever.
“We reached one million cases because the pandemic could no longer be contained. The quarantine has already had its effect, it is like a containment, like a wall that is placed before an avalanche of water, but there comes a point where it breaks and it can no longer be. Then it was opened and there were more cases ”, he emphasizes.
But Hernández assures that in reality this figure of the million cases speaks of the diagnostic capacity of the countries, but not of the real expansion of the pandemic in each of them. As he explains, those with the greatest diagnostic capacity are those with more and more cases, but that does not fully determine the spread of the virus in their territory.
What does determine the progress of the pandemic, according to Hernández, are indicators such as the percentage of positivity in the tests, the number of tests that are done, the number of cases that are captured before 72 hours and the percentage of people who comply with isolation.
Thus, what happens then is not that the pandemic has exploded in Colombia and not in other countries in the region such as Ecuador, which reports just over 150,000 infections, or Bolivia, which reports more than 140,000. It is not that the other countries do not have cases, but that they do not measure them, explains the epidemiologist.
Cuellar indicates that the country, although it does not carry out the expected number of tests per million inhabitants, is ahead of other countries in the region. According to data from the National Institute of Health, Colombia has processed more than 4,600,000 tests: more than 3.9 million PCR tests and more than 670,000 antigen tests.
With 92,430 tests per million inhabitants, Colombia is the fourth country with the most tests per million in the region, surpassed by Chile, with 212,917 tests per million; Panama, with 141,768 tests per million; and Peru, with 131,169 tests per million inhabitants. This as of October 24 and according to data from the Worldometer, a real-time statistics base, which places Colombia in 95th place in tests per million inhabitants in the world.
That same statistical base places Colombia in the 26th position in number of cases per million inhabitants in the world, with 19,739 cases per million, as of Saturday October 24; and at number 16 in deaths per million inhabitants, with 588 deaths per million population.
But despite the fact that the surveillance system has been strengthened and that there are 144 laboratories to process tests and a declared capacity of 55,991 daily tests, a diagnostic capacity that today brings us closer to a million cases, Hernández affirms that what we see with this million is just the tip of the Iceberg.
According to the epidemiologist, Colombia carries out a very laboratory surveillance, that is, it counts as infections those with a positive PCR test, but below that there are moderate or mild symptoms and many asymptomatic ones who completely escape the official count.
“When you say one million cases in Colombia, it is actually five to seven million cases, because for each case there may be five to ten more cases. That million cases is just the tip of an iceberg, because the virus continues to spread, “he explains.
But for Cuellar, the underreporting is somewhat less. For him, the cases that we do not detect are between two and three million, infections that were not detected by the population that did not access the tests, either due to social or economic conditions, because of the belief that the virus does not exist or because they did not present notorious symptoms that will lead them to request a test from the health system.
In the number of deaths there could also be an underreporting. According to the Ministry of Health, deaths from coronavirus are already 30,000. Different from the figures of the National Administrative Department of Statistics (Dane), which, as of October 4, reported 29,787 deaths from confirmed covid-19 and 6,010 from suspected covid, which together give more than 35,700 deaths.
“There is an under-registration of mortalities, as there is always a lag in mortalities, right now we are having information from the last 15 or 20 days. They say 30,000 but very surely it could be between 35,000 to 40,000 dead, ”says Hernández.
Cuellar explains that this difference and those suspected cases are due to the fact that they are cases that are still awaiting the result of their sample or awaiting the result of the analysis unit that does all the follow-up to check if the death is associated with covid -19.
“There will always be an underreporting and all cases should always be adjusted according to the units of analysis and the sample report when it arrives that it is positive and there the mortality is adjusted”, Cuellar explains about a possible underreporting of deaths by the virus in the country.
But despite the fact that one million cases and 30,000 deaths are already a regrettable figure and a great problem in terms of public health and in social terms, both experts agree that the outlook could have been much worse, had they not taken measures such as the quarantine to prepare the health system and to flatten the curve of covid-19.
“If we had not done things as they were done, we would not have 30,000 dead, we would have more than 50,000 dead. 30,000 deaths is not an achievement, it is a disaster, but that disaster could have been worse if an early quarantine had not been carried out ”, explains Hernández.
In addition, he explains that the government projections spoke of at least 41,000 deaths by the end of December, a figure that can be reached taking into account that between 150 and 200 deaths are reported per day.
Cuellar also recalls that, according to the initial statistics and epidemiological models of the National Institute of Health, if nothing had been done, the panorama in two months would have been four million infected or even ten by the end of the year.
What comes in the advance of the pandemic?
According to projections made by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), a research institute of the University of Washington, if current conditions are maintained, Colombia could reach 43,373 deaths from covid-19 by February 1 of 2021. There would be 41,026 in a scenario in which everyone wears masks and maintains social distance and hand washing. This with update to October 15.
And as for the cases, the epidemiologists consulted explain that cities are lined up to go through their peak, since all must go through that so-called epidemiological peak. According to Hernández, as cities are queuing and several have already passed, such as Cartagena or Barranquilla, peaks will now come in Cali, Medellín, Montería, Valledupar, the Eje Cafetero and other cities where the peak of contagion has not yet occurred.
“These are the most worrying cities, not because there is an unusual situation, but because it was expected, they go in line. All cities have to reach an epidemic peak and all are going to have a second and third wave, none of them will escape and it will be mild or moderate depending on what we do, ”he explains.
According to the expert, do not panic, as the virus is undoubtedly going to spread. Now, the key to containing new waves and having a lower impact will be compliance with the measures of physical distance, hand washing, use of face masks and cleaning of surfaces.
In addition, it will be key that the government facilitate isolation so that the populations can comply with it and that it continue with a gradual reopening that allows the situation to be controlled.
[ad_2]
