There are 1,175 people in Costa Rica hospitalized with Covid-19, a new record, the Health Ministry said in its Friday evening update.
Of those hospitalized patients, 433 are in an ICU bed, also a new high. This has in some cases exhausted Costa Rica’s national capacity in its public-health system. The public system has about 400 available ICU beds, with additional space at private health centers.
On Friday morning, at least 50 patients requiring ICU hospitalization were forced to wait for an availability, the Social Security System (Caja) said.
The country confirmed 2,392 new cases on Friday, continuing a streak of elevated case counts that began in mid-April.
Twenty-four people died on Friday related to Covid-19. For context, respiratory viruses killed 23 people in Costa Rica in all of 2018.
