Dominican Republic closes the week with the highest number of infections during the entire pandemic

Between Sunday 2 and Saturday, January 8, the Dominican Republic has registered 35,274 new cases of COVID-19, which is the week with the highest number of infections since the pandemic in March 2020.

At the same time, it is one of the four weeks in which fewer deaths have been reported due to complications from the disease. However, in those seven days, six deaths were registered.

The weeks with the fewest deaths reported to date are those from September 5 to 11, when two deaths were reported, and those from December 12 to 18 (4), September 29 to 8 (5), and September 8 to August 14 (6), all in 2021.

The highest spikes of infections this week were reported on Saturday (6,200) and Sunday (6,042), when a slight increase in hospital occupancy was also recorded.

Intensive care admissions went from 22% to 26% because 20 people were admitted to this unit.

The use of ventilators increased by three percentage points, from 22% to 25%.

While the intermediate admissions increased from 26% to 29%, 62 people were reported to have entered this area between Saturday’s bulletin and Sunday’s.

A week that exceeds months

These 35,274 new infections represent the highest number recorded in a week and exceed the infections of almost every month of 2021 and 2020.

Only the cases reported in January of last year (42,868) and July 2020 (38,028) exceed the new positives this week.

The infections reported during this week represent 7% of the 457,227 infections that the country has registered since the pandemic. A large part of the infections corresponds to the omicron variant, circulating in the country since last December.

Active cases

Of the 35,274 new infections registered, 33,146 remain active. 29% of these cases are in the National District, where 9,721 people are still sick with COVID-19.

21% of active cases are located in Santo Domingo, with 6,966 people still affected by the virus and 7% in Santiago (2,479).

This week 90,805 tests were carried out to detect the coronavirus, and 10,800 people have been recovered.

Health personnel has been one of the most affected because, according to the Dominican Medical College (CMD) and the National Association of Nurses (Asonaen), more than 150 of its professionals are infected; however, the Public Health data only register 109.