Antioquia reported no deaths from covid-19 after almost two years

Antioquia lived this Monday, March 14, a historic day in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic in Colombia. After almost two years, the department did not report people who died from covid-19, according to figures released by the Ministry of Health. In the most recent report, the entity reported 27 new infections, which are in addition to the 196 active cases.

The trend in recent weeks has shown a marked reduction in the number of infected people, as well as fatalities in the region. “Today in the report of deceased Antioquia has zero, the week before that Saturday ended a total of nine deaths. We did not have this report of zero deaths since June 2020 ″,” said Leopoldo Giraldo, manager for the containment of COVID in Antioquia, in statements collected by Blu Radio.

As the official explained, this represents “very important news” for the department, and is an invitation to “continue to take care of ourselves, to continue to maintain biosecurity measures and seek the vaccine.”

Regarding the state of the hospital network, the Emergency and Emergency Regulatory Center (CRUE) stated that the orange alert is maintained in Antioquia, with an occupancy of Intensive Care Units (ICU) of 81.34%. Of the total 922 beds, 750 are occupied. The most critical territories, at the cut of Monday, March 14, are Medellin (88.73%), Bello (87.18%), La Ceja (18.95%) and Itagüi (71.88%).

Meanwhile, vaccination in Antioquia is progressing positively, since, according to the latest report by the Ministry of Health, more than 11,158,092 doses have already been applied. The Aburrá Valley, the East and Urabá are the subregions with the greatest amount of applied biologics. For its part, the Government revealed that 1,459,055 booster vaccines have already been administered and more than 4,800,000 people have the complete scheme.

But the reduction in the number of infections did not occur only in Antioquia, but throughout the country. On Monday, there were only 469 new infections and 18 deaths, according to the daily report of the health authorities. Colombia accumulated more than six million cases, of which only 6,374 remain active.

“The number of hospitalized infections and deaths due to covid-19 continues to fall,” said the Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz, on Twitter, adding that it is “important to take advantage of this period to complete the vaccination and protect ourselves against possible new outbreaks.”

Bogotá had the highest number of infections during the day, with 170, followed by the departments of Santander (39), Cundinamarca (32), Antioquia (27), Bolívar (24) and Valle del Cauca (23).

The 18 deaths, of which 17 correspond to previous days, occurred in Huila and Valle del Cauca (3); Bogotá, Norte de Santander and Santander with two deaths; and Arauca, Caldas, Caquetá, Córdoba, Meta and Nariño reported one case, respectively.

Martha Ospina, director of the National Institute of Health (INS), said days ago that “it is very likely” that the country is approaching the end of the pandemic, so the gradual suspension of the use of masks was a coherent measure. “The models show a steady decline in the curve during the month of March and then a flattening,” he added.

For this reason, one of the points debated by the health authorities corresponds to moving from declaring covid-19 as a pandemic to calling it endemic. The first term refers to the spread of a virus worldwide, while the second refers to a disease that occurs in certain regions. When a disease becomes endemic, the number of people infected tends to be maintained over time.

*With information from EFE

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