The latest academic measurements for COVID-19 confirm the trend in reductions of the reproduction rate, known as R0. According to the Central American Population Center of the UCR, the index is 0.96, that is, every 100 cases produce less than a hundred new patients. The data draws attention because the stabilization of the COVID-19 occurs when there has been more social interaction compared to the past months.
“The health order for mandatory use of masks in public places as of September 9th is the latest government intervention to reduce the reproduction rate of the Pandemic. All the interventions announced in October have been rather in the opposite direction and aimed at reducing restrictions”, the report indicates.
In this regard, the UCR adds that if stronger measures had been maintained, the decline in COVID-19 could have been even greater. “The drop in R in October is probably due to the dynamics of the epidemic outbreak itself; that is to say, to the reduction of the reservoir of people susceptible to becoming infected because many have been immunized by having already suffered from the disease”, it adds. The results also differ from the times of the “hammer blows”, when around August the R0 soared despite the Government’s insistence on resorting to closures.
Where does the COVID-19 go from here on?
The sustained trend to lower R0 generates three possible scenarios for COVID-19 in Costa Rica:
Positive: it would bring the R0 to around 0.7 and thus it would drop to 400 infections a day.
Negative: a rise to 1.1 would standardize in 1,100 daily cases by December.
Sustained: most likely and predicts an average of 700 cases per day.
If the current line is maintained, in addition, hospitalizations for COVID-19 are expected to be 360, with 150 patients demanding ICU. By deaths, the scenario makes a total of 1,730 for the beginning of December.
Curve goes down slowly
The behavior of R0 allows us to affirm that at the beginning of September the country reached the peak of the Pandemic. In addition to the drop in infections, Costa Rica at that time reached 250 daily cases of COVID-19 per million inhabitants. This rate has been constant in Latin America regardless of the size of its population.
What happens from there has presented variations and while in some countries the fall was accelerated -Mexico and Peru-, in others -such as Colombia or Panama- the disease path has been slower. Costa Rica would be joining the latter according to the behavior shown.
