Starting this Monday, we will once again enter the dynamic we had before,” says Daniel Salas. The Minister of Health stated that the date of opening borders is maintained for August 1st, despite the rapid growth in the cases of COVID-19.
Salas assured that the most stringent restrictive measures – to contain the sharp increase in COVID-19 cases – will last only until Sunday, July 19th. “After that date, the government hopes to return to the previous dynamic”, he said.
“From Monday (July 20th) we will re-enter the dynamics being carried out before what was started on the 11th of this month (the measures). Hopefully, we do not have to apply these measures later again. For the moment we are going to resume the phase that was before this application,” said Salas.
The main mission of the recent measures was to allow the Ministry of Health to recover the trace of the contacts of each infected person, something that was lost since the beginning of the month and led the Ministry of Health to declare community transmission alert in the Metropolitan Area.
Salas said it is still early to determine if the measures that were taken will allow recovering the contact trace dynamic that was in place before July 11th. “The incubation period and the subsequent emergence of the disease that can occur are still latent. Some people might still be doing incubations and that is something that we have to anticipate,” the Minister warned.
“We are working with all areas of both the Fund and the Ministry of Health to empower this recovery of the traceability for the follow-up of cases and the sanitary orders issued promptly,” he added.
Borders will open in 15 days
The opening of airports is also maintained for August 1st, as confirmed by the Minister. According to him, the authorities will provide more details on the protocol to follow for international tourists in the coming days.
Meanwhile, Costa Rica doubled the number of active COVID-19 cases in the past 10 days, and hospitalizations more than tripled in the past 15 days. This is a faster advance to that predicted by the Center for Research in Pure and Applied Mathematics (Cimpa), in scenarios without compliance with sanitary measures.
The Health Minister appealed to the individual responsibility of citizens, for preventing the increase in cases from continuing. According to him, everyone should help flatten the contagion curve. “This is not the battle of the Ministry of Health and the CCSS against COVID-19. It is not a war that only we are in. It is a war that all Costa Rica is waging against the Pandemic,” he concluded.
