Colombia experiences its worst days since pandemic outbreak

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – For a week Colombia has been registering over 400 daily coronavirus deaths, a figure that has overwhelmed hospitals in the main cities and brought the country to a situation it had not experienced in previous peaks.

On Monday the country reported 448 new deaths and last week was the deadliest since the pandemic began, with more than 3,020 deaths registered, out of a total of 71,351, and the authorities predict that the situation will worsen.

The third wave is being experienced in a “quite difficult”, “critical and hard” way in Bogotá hospitals such as Tunal, in the south of the city, according to ICU head Dr. Jhon Parra, who is concerned that “more and more patients are arriving, more serious and at fairly young, between 20 and 60 years old, with a mortality rate of almost 50%, one is saved and another dies.”

“Bed occupancies have increased dramatically. We vacate five beds and we receive thirteen requests a day,” lamented this physician.

Bogotá, the main focus of the disease in Colombia, has a total of 770,603 infections and 15,342 deaths, clearly discouraging figures.

Bogotá mayor Claudia Lopez used social networks today to emphasize that everyone is “making a great sacrifice to prevent the system from collapsing” and that it can “continue to attend to all the people who need it.”

DARK OUTLOOK

For this reason and to raise awareness, the mayor warned that ICUs in Bogotá are at 91% occupancy, but not only the country’s capital is in this situation as its neighbors are also experiencing critical days.

According to López, Villavicencio, capital of the department of Meta, reported 100% ICU occupancy; Tunja, the capital of Boyacá, 85%; and Cundinamarca, of which Bogotá is the capital, has already reached 100% occupancy.

For his part, Antioquia governor Luis Fernando Suarez warned days ago that “a tsunami of deaths” is approaching due to the pandemic, and his capital, Medellín, is struggling to attend to all the sick.

Colombia registered on Sunday its record number of deaths from Covid-19, 465, and the pandemic has so far infected 2,787,303 people.

CALLS TO STOP THE STRIKE

The crisis has led several state and local authorities to discourage the national strike called by labor unions, teachers and other sectors of the country for next Wednesday against the tax reform presented by the government of Iván Duque to Congress for discussion and which imposes more taxes on the middle class.

Mayor Lopez made available the capital’s public television channel and the radio station to social organizations involved in the national strike so that “they can make their causes known.”

Humberto de la Calle, who was the head of the government’s negotiating team during the peace negotiations with the then FARC guerrillas, joined in the request to avoid riots.

“There are 15 hard days ahead. There are many reasons to criticize Duque. But this emergency is non-partisan. It is a matter of a united society. It will be possible to take stock of what was done and what was not done. But now we are all united with discipline and extreme care. This is a serious matter”, he expressed on social networks.