Category Archives: Coronavirus

Data released from Peru’s Ministry of Health through January 25 shows that the expected increase from the holiday season is possibly beginning to see a leveling off.

Keep in mind that this is based on only a few days’ data, but past trends of a few days have generally been good indicators of longer term trends.

First the bad news. As is always the case, deaths are the trailing indicator of infections rates. The rate of deaths always follows some time later after a rise in infections and hospitalizations.

Unfortunately, the number of daily deaths is rising at a rate that I think surprises everyone. On the most recent day reported (Monday), 220 COVID-19 deaths were reported.

So far, January is seeing an average of over 95 deaths a day. Obviously, with this trend that number is going to climb much, much higher before the end of the month as there are no signs that this is even close to leveling off.

Unfortunately, there isn’t really any good news, but there is some news that is a little better than it’s been and gives hope that things may start to improve.

Hospitalizations have declined over the past two days. Considering the drastic rise over several weeks, this is a good sign, especially since, while bed availability was getting close to full, it had not reach full capacity.

The number of COVID patients under ICU care continues to rise very slowly, but this is still likely due to the fact that ICU capacity is completely full in many parts of the country. Sadly, often ICU beds become available when a patient dies.

There are signs that the positivity rate of testing is starting to level off. There have been some significant daily variations that have skewed the graph, but in general the trend is no longer increasing. It’s a little hard to see from the chart below because those wild high and low numbers for single days cause big dips and rises, but its much clearer when looking at the daily numbers.

Another encouraging sign is that the number of known active cases of COVID-19 in Peru has decreased over the past couple of days.

Again, two or three days don’t mean much, but after several weeks of constant increases, they are a welcome break and, in the past, have been indicative of developing trends.

The post-holiday increase in cases was expected and predicted quite while back. As long as things have gone back to what they were before, a peak and then a decrease are also likely to start showing up about now.

The wild cards in all of this are, of course, the mutations that are already present in Peru. The UK variant has been confirmed. It is considered to be a more contagious variant of COVID-19 and there are indications that it is a more deadly strain, too.

Even more worrisome is the Brazilian variant (known as the P1 variant). As Brazil shares an extensive and porous border with Peru, this variant has shown signs of re-infecting those who have already experienced COVID-19 infection. I don’t think it’s presence in Peru has been confirmed, but it’s almost unimaginable that it is not here.

Unless there is a major shift one way or the other, I don’t plan to do an update until data is released through the end of the month. I am hopefully that things will begin to show improvements in this time, but as we’ve all learned, COVID-19 has it’s own timeline.

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Peru’s President Francisco Sagasti addressed the nation tonight and made some major announcements.

With the COVID pandemic becoming “serious due to the rapid increase of contagion”, several regions of the country (including Metropolitan Lima, Lima Provincias, Callao, Ancash, Pasco, Huanuco, Junin, Ica and Apurimac) will be going back under quarantine.

Sagasti said restrictions will remain in place for international flights from Europe, but Brazil will now be included.

The president said 196 ICU beds have been added in the last two weeks and 350 more will be added in the next two weeks nationwide.

Sagasti also noted that the vaccination process will start in February and that the government is coordinating with Sinopharm for the shipment of half a million doses in February and another million and a half doses in March.

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The current wave of COVID-19 continues to spread rapidly as evidenced by data reported by the Ministry of Health (Minsa) through January 20.

[As always, click on the graphs to see larger versions.]

The only good news is that the positivity rate is not rising anymore towards the horrific rate of around 30% we saw during the winter, but it still is extremely high and is a probably a better measurement of infections since the government is testing around 30,000 a day and using a higher number of the more reliable molecular tests.

COVID hospitalizations since Christmas continue to climb despite the government’s proactive focus on identifying cases quickly and providing at-home treatment as early as possible.

Fiorella Molinelli, executive president of EsSalud, believes this is a result of faster spread of COVID. Possibly this is due to newer, more contagious variants introduced into Peru which are suspected by still not confirmed.

ICU cases are not climbing nearly as fast, but this is undoubtedly due to the fact that ICU beds are virtually full with no room left for those who need them.

Peru’s Prime Minister, Violeta Bermúdez, noted a few days ago that Peru has 1768 ICU beds available. As of January 20, only 2.3% of all the ICU beds in Peru were available. Sadly, in much of the country now, a bed becomes available only when someone dies.

Last night, Gestion reported that there is only one ICU bed available in Lima and Callao for about 11 million people.

The saddest part of all of this is that the number of deaths each day is rising at an a frightening rate which no signs of slowing down. (As a “trailing indicator”, it likely will continue to rise for some time.)

Five of the last six days have seen reported deaths well over 100. Were it not for one day at 60, the rolling 7-day average would be skyrocketing. Unless there is another low day soon, the average will shoot up far more than is clear so far. (That’s the point of rolling 7-day averages. They show trends more clearly rather than daily ups and downs.

Last night, Fiorella Molinelli, executive president of EsSalud, said that the second wave of COVID is generating a higher level of hospitalization because of a change in the speed of contagion.

Speaking to RPP Noticias’ Así Somos, Molinelli said that unlike the first wave, the disease is not generating as many initial symptoms and is affecting people’s lungs by up to 50%. This causes a greater demand for intensive care beds and a higher oxygen consumption.

“What we have observed is that basically there is a change in the speed of contagion and, as I repeat, once a person is infected, he or she spreads the infection to the whole group within his or her family or work nucleus,” she said.

“Now it sends you from mild to severe without going through this intermediate stage and then you arrive at the hospital with the need to consume large volumes of oxygen. The oxygen demands are already much higher, because you arrive in a much more aggravated situation,” she added.

Molinelli also warned that there is now a greater variety of age groups in the country’s intensive care units and that there are even adolescent patients arriving in this state. In the last few weeks he said that patients between 12 and 17 years of age have been registered.

“We have definitely seen young people, we have also seen some adolescents, but yes now we see greater diversity in terms of the age group, it is no longer older adults who predominate in the ICUs, but rather you see fundamentally adult people and young people who you say how could it be that they have ended up in an ICU,” he said.

Regarding the ICU bed capacity in the country, the head of EsSalud said that currently the historical occupancy rate has been surpassed at national level, with more than 1,700 beds occupied. As she explained, only in the last five days the maximum peak reached during the first wave of the disease was surpassed with 1,553 beds.

“About five days ago we surpassed the maximum peak of 1,553, we reached it in August with about 60,000 infected. Today, for example, in the statistics of infection, what we see is a high positivity in the age groups. There are around more than 23,000 infected, but we see that the ICU beds are full, full, and this is because the jump in the evolution of the disease is much faster and more aggressive”, she indicated.

Molinelli said that it is necessary that the citizens become aware and comply with the biosecurity measures to avoid more contagions of the disease in order to avoid more restrictive measures that could affect the economy and therefore not allow a greater disbursement of resources to the health system.

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