Costa Rica reached a grim milestone Friday reaching over 7300 new cases of Covid-19 according to the Ministry of Health. That is an increase of over 130% in the past two weeks. The Omicron variant was not reported in Costa Rica until December but cases have quickly exploded
According to many experts this number may only be a fraction of the actual infections since many people are asymptomatic even though they are infected and others with mild or moderate symptoms may not seek medical attention.
Daniel Salas, the head of the Ministry of Health also admits that the current surge is beginning to strain the ability of health care workers to keep up with the surge. The number of infected health care workers is adding to the problems.
One issue has been those that have been tested do not receive their results or they take several days to arrive, which can cause them to infect members of their family and others.
The Ministry admits that they are having trouble keeping up with the large increase in cases, issuing a statement that “we do what we can”.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Health says that despite their renewed efforts to increase testing capabilities it is unlikely that it will be sufficient to keep up with the demand anytime in the near future.
