ICU beds are scarce in the Capital

17 deaths of Covid patients were registered yesterday

Santo Domingo, DR

On a day in which 17 deaths due to Covid were reported, Greater Santo Domingo had only 60 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds and 83 ventilators available yesterday in its public and private sector Covid hospital network, presenting occupancy levels of 82% and 70%, respectively. In contrast, it had 201 regular beds, for an occupancy rate of 71%.

For the care of Covid patients, the Metropolitan Health Region has 701 beds available, of which 500 were occupied at midday yesterday; of the 333 ICU beds, 273 were in use, and of the 279 ventilators available, 196 were occupied by patients with Covid-19 disease.

Nationally, the average occupancy rate in ICU was 74% yesterday with 441 critical patients hospitalized and 66% in the use of ventilators, with 323 patients under assisted ventilation, while in regular Covid beds, the number of people admitted was 1,320 with 50% occupancy, according to official monitoring.

17 new deaths
Meanwhile, after several weeks reporting low mortality, yesterday, the Covid-19 surveillance system reported 17 new deaths due to the disease, bringing the pandemic’s death toll to 3,672, for a mortality rate of 351.44 per million inhabitants.

Also reported were 1,004 new positive cases of the virus in a total of 6,442 laboratory samples processed, bringing the daily positivity rate to 21.85%.

The positivity rate for the last four weeks continues to rise and yesterday stood at 17.11%.

The total number of accumulated positive cases registered in the country is 302,988, of which 52,054 are reported with active viruses. A total of 247,262 people have been recovered. The provinces that yesterday contributed the highest number of cases are Greater Santo Domingo with 405 new infections; Barahona reported 100 new cases and Santiago with 72.

To date, the system registers 1,017 pregnant women who have been diagnosed positive for the virus, 1,125 health workers, and 33,122 children under 20 years of age.

CEDIMAT opens six new ICU beds
The Centers for Diagnostic and Advanced Medicine and Medical Conferences and Telemedicine (CEDIMAT) reported that they had increased the number of beds available in the inpatient area and the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for patients with Covid-19.

Jorge Marte Baez, Medical Director of CEDIMAT, explained that the center opened a new ICU with six more beds for people with the virus due to the increase in demand for admission, so it currently has 26 beds in Intensive Care and 25 for intermediate care, for a total of 51 beds for Covid.

He recalled that the center started with 14 beds; to face this enemy, 11 more were increased, thus multiplying the availability of rooms.

Of the total number of beds available, Cedimat had 45 in use yesterday morning, representing an 80% occupancy rate. In COVID’s exclusive outpatient clinic, 15,000 patients have been attended.

Medical Association supports restrictive measures.
The reality that the country is living at the moment with the Covid-19 pandemic, where hospital beds are scarce, and the positivity is very high, makes it mandatory that the Government continues to maintain the curfew in force to restrict the mobility of citizens.

This was stated yesterday by the president of the Dominican Medical Association (CMD), Waldo Ariel Suero, favoring the decree issued yesterday by the President of the Republic, which extends for one more week the curfew from 6:00 pm in 25 provinces from Monday to Friday and 3:00 pm on Saturdays and Sundays, with mobility of three hours in each case.

FIRMNESS
Keeping distance
Waldo Ariel Suero affirms that the current situation being experienced in the country with the virus’s behavior is because the disease was given a “field day,” with the Government issuing a message that everything was fine. Hence, people took off their masks and continued with the “teteo.” He understands that the Government must continue to tighten the restrictive measures and control of the virus without lowering its guard until more than 70 percent of the population is vaccinated or infected with the virus.