Costa Rica coronavirus updates for Monday, May 10

There are 1,280 people in Costa Rica hospitalized with Covid-19, a new record, the Health Ministry said in its Monday evening update.

Of those hospitalized patients, 466 are in an ICU bed, also a new high. This has exhausted Costa Rica’s national capacity in its public-health system, which says it can no longer provide timely or quality care to all patients.

“The CCSS had never had more than 1,000 patients hospitalized with the same diagnosis in its 80 years of existence,” the Social Security System said in a statement.

The average age of hospitalized patients is 54 years, down from 60 in early January.

The country confirmed 1,500 new cases on Monday, continuing a streak of elevated case counts that began in mid-April.

Sixty-five people died from Saturday to Monday related to Covid-19. For context, respiratory viruses killed 23 people in Costa Rica in all of 2018.