RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Guatemala registered Sunday, September 12, 45 more deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 and 1,070 new infections, bringing the overall figure to 12,710 deaths due to the disease and 510,724 confirmed cases during the entire pandemic.
The update of Covid-19 data by the Guatemalan Ministry of Health indicated that 67% of the 12,710 deaths caused by the coronavirus in Guatemala were male, and 33% were female.
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The health ministry also detailed that 5,707 deaths (45%) have taken place in the department of Guatemala, where the country’s capital is located, and the rest, 55%, in the 21 provincial departments of the Central American country.
According to health authorities, Guatemala has been in the third wave of the disease since June 14, with a hospital occupancy rate of 97 percent of seriously ill patients, according to the latest report of the Ministry of Health.
In the last two months, the number of daily deaths in Guatemala has practically tripled. Almost 90 percent of the 340 municipalities of the country are in the red alert, the maximum possible in the epidemiological traffic light that governs the population’s activities.
Several experts point to the expansion of the Delta variant as the culprit for the increase in infections and deaths due to Covid-19 in recent months.
As for vaccination, it is progressing at a slow pace and remains one of the lowest in the continent, with only 1.7 million people vaccinated with the full two-dose schedule and just over 3.7 million people with a first dose.
According to official figures, the Central American country has around 16.3 million people, 59 percent of whom live below the poverty line.
The Guatemalan government set a target of 10.5 million people to be vaccinated, corresponding to all adults. Still, after only six months of immunizing with the anticovid-19 drugs, it is close to just 11 percent of the plan.