Easter will return to be face-to-face in Colombia, according to the Episcopal Conference

Between Sunday 10 and Sunday 17 April, the so-called Holy or Greater Week will take place, and many Catholic faithful are waiting for how it will develop nationwide as the pandemic has complicated all group activities in the last two years, including spiritual ones.

In this regard, Monsignor Luis José Rueda, archbishop of Bogotá and president of the Colombian Episcopal Conference, mentioned the presence of religious fanatics in the precincts, reminding that biosecurity measures must be respected.

“I believe that the Holy Week of 2022, which is already approaching and for which we are preparing on this Lenten journey, will be like that of return. The one about the return to the temples with all the care and protocols, because we are no longer going to do as before. We have to take certain measures of distancing, of care,” said the prelate from Pereira, where he leads a missionary meeting.

As he expressed the joy of resuming a Holy Week with 100% face-to-face participation of his fervent religious, he recalled that there is a virus that changed the behavior of humanity and for this reason the necessary precautions must be taken.

Likewise, Monsignor Luis José Rueda, expressed his concern about the alleged outbreaks of the virus that are taking place in Asia and Europe, since when this type of situation occurs in America they usually pass the type of domino effect three or four weeks later.

Monsignor stressed that care must be strengthened with this virus, which especially attacks those over 60 years of age, and also indicated that he is expecting outbreaks on both continents to cease and Easter can be celebrated normally in the national territory.

The Ministry of Health reported, this Saturday, March 19, 2022, 693 new cases of covid-19 in Colombia. In the last 24 hours, 14,456 tests were processed, of which 7,042 are PCR and 7,414 are antigens.

The report also notes that 19 Colombians died of the disease on the last day. In this way, the country reaches a total of 139,434 deaths from the virus since the beginning of the pandemic.

By aggregating all the figures, Colombia reached a total of 6,080,589 infections, of which 5,495 are active cases and 5,912,996 correspond to positive cases that have already managed to overcome the disease.

As for the regions with the most reported cases, Bogotá leads with 372 infected, followed by Boyacá with 57 infections and in third place Valle del Cauca with 45.

María Belén Jaimes, coordinator of the Public Health Surveillance Group of the Department of Epidemiology and Demography, assured that the decrease in cases of covid-19 in the national territory is clear, but in addition, she noted that there has been a much more decreasing trend in mortality, even in the most vulnerable groups to this disease.

“This decline in mortality, which has reached very low levels, is a consequence of the high vaccination coverage that has been achieved, the progress in reinforcements, the vaccination of children and adolescents, but also of the high seroprevalence achieved in capital cities. It is consistent throughout the country and shows a very positive picture that should fill us with hope,” said Maria Belén Jaimes.

Likewise, he assured that in matters of mortality, the population of older adults aged between 70 and 80 years or older, are the people who are most dying from covid-19 in Colombia.

Therefore, the coordinator of the Public Health Surveillance Group of the Department of Epidemiology and Demography invited citizens to apply the booster dose, or third dose of the vaccine against covid-19.

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