Peru faces worst moment of pandemic with one death every 5 minutes

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – At the frightening rate of one death every five minutes, Peruvians are facing the worst moment of the pandemic after an apparent relaxation of prevention measures, despite the fact that the Brazilian variant of Covid-19 is accelerating infections in this prolonged second wave.

Although Peru has tried almost all the measures applied to mitigate the pandemic -strict quarantine, border closures, curfews, mandatory use of masks and face masks, among others-, nothing seems to stop the advance of the virus, which has officially caused the death of more than 58,000 people in one year.

So far in April, the Ministry of Health has reported the death of almost 6,000 people, which surpasses last February’s death toll of 5,500 people from Covid-19.

“In the first wave (in 2020), the highest peaks reported by the Ministry of Health were close to 220 deaths per day,” said data analyst Rodrigo Parra in an interview with Efe.

“Already in this last week, the daily average has risen to 350 deaths, practically in a day every five minutes a death is being confirmed”, he added.

MORE THAN 700 DEATHS IN EXCESS

In parallel to the ministry’s measurement, the National Informatics System of Deaths (SINADEF) collects the deceased for all reasons in a national registry and presents the excess deaths occurred during the health crisis, taking into consideration the trends of previous years.

“If we measure it by excess deaths, at least 1,140 people per day are currently dying through SINADEF, compared to 300 before the pandemic. This is an excess of more than 700 people per day,” said Parra.

Thus, in April there have been between 400 and 350 deaths per day with a confirmed diagnosis by Covid-19, and as many deaths above the historical average.

“Once again, Peru, after the first wave, and now in this second wave, is unfortunately positioned in the first places in the world for excess deaths,” said Parra, who shares on social networks a daily analysis of data on the pandemic.

The interim president of Peru, Francisco Sagasti, said on Thursday: “We are already at the peak of the second wave and it is really terrible what is happening in our country and in other countries of the region”.

CONTAGIONS ARE CLOSE TO 10,000 PER DAY

When analyzing infections since the end of March, the percentage of positive cases with respect to the total number of tests was 12%, but this week the positivity is close to 20%, with peaks on some days of 40%, noted Parra.

The second wave in Peru began in January and accelerated its growth last February, when the authorities warned of the entry of the Brazilian variant, which is present in 10 of the 25 regions of the country.

The president of the Public Health Committee of the Peruvian Medical Association, Augusto Tarazona, explained to Efe that in the last two weeks there have been between 9,000 and 10,000 cases per covid per day.

“That amount of cases already our health system cannot support it. Of those cases, at least 1,000 go to seek health care, but we are no longer in capacity to attend, all of that comes together to increase mortality in our country,” he said.

VARIANTS AND ELECTIONS

Tarazona affirmed that there have been four factors that have contributed to the worsening of the crisis, among which is the “relaxation that has existed due to the electoral campaign” in February and March, with demonstrations, travels of candidates and face-to-face voting for the election of the Executive and Congress, which took place last April 11.

Likewise, the trips made during Easter Week, in spite of the freezing of the government issued by the Sagasti administration.

A third factor is the presence of the Brazilian variant, which “is becoming much more intense in several regions of the country and will mean a faster growth of the pandemic”, said the infectologist.

In addition, Tarazona pointed out that “there has not been any type of control of the sanitary measures established some time ago”, by means of an effective control of compliance with the use of masks or social distancing.

TIRED OF RESTRICTIONS

The physician accepted that there is among the population “a pandemic fatigue” that has been going on for more than a year. “But we have no other option. There is no other option because the pandemic continues and is getting stronger and stronger,” he stressed.

The operations of the National Police are more frequent in the so-called “covid parties” or traditional celebrations in the provinces, where the agents have had problems to interfere with those who do not comply with the prohibitions against this type of activities.

Tarazona also underlined that there is an additional characteristic in the spread of the virus and that is the intra-family contagion, which makes the contagion faster in a whole family group and has tripled the mortality rate at home due to the impossibility for a whole sick family to find help in time.