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Strolling exterior the Dr. Marcelino Vélez Santana Regional Hospital in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic’s capital, de la Nuez instructed CNN he is nonetheless in shock.
“My spouse contracted Covid-19 10 days in the past. She had a excessive fever. She additionally had very extreme muscle pains which induced her to have contractions. Our child lady died. After we went to get a sonogram, it was already too late,” he stated.
His spouse continues to be recovering within the hospital’s intensive care unit. The de la Nuez household is one among many coping with yet one more wave of infections on this Caribbean nation of practically 11 million. Final week on the identical hospital, 17 of 18 beds within the ICU had been occupied and there was just one ventilator left.
Till just lately, the Dominican Republican appeared to be heading towards normality. September noticed a report variety of vacationers go to the Caribbean nation, and greater than 2 million college students within the public training system returned to in-person lessons for the primary time in additional than a yr. On October 11, the nation’s nationwide state of emergency was lifted.
However was it too quickly?
Simply as college students returned to lessons, Covid-19 circumstances started trending upward, knowledge revealed by Johns Hopkins College (JHU) reveals.
Lower than two weeks later, Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan-American Well being Group (PAHO), introduced that whereas the Covid-19 pattern in most of Latin America and the Caribbean was downward, new circumstances had elevated by over 40% within the Dominican Republic.
New variants, faculties and vaccination charges
Dr. Jorge Marte, director of the Middle for Prognosis, Superior Medication and Telemedicine (CEDIMAT), one of many predominant hospitals in Santo Domingo, factors to the unfold of latest variants and the reopening of faculties as important components within the nation’s surging case numbers.
However these measures might solely go up to now, in line with Marte, who says that regardless of the introduction of booster pictures, the nation’s total vaccination marketing campaign has been inadequate.
Lower than 50% of the whole Dominican inhabitants has been totally vaccinated, in line with JHU. The federal government had aimed to vaccinate 70% of the nation’s eligible inhabitants with at the least two doses.
“We’ve got but to vaccinate the inhabitants goal we set for ourselves,” says Marte, who additionally serves as a presidential well being adviser.
Dominican Well being Minister Daniel Rivera has described the virus’ resurgence as a disaster of the unvaccinated, who’re taxing well being assets and occupying ICU beds.
“Out of the final 31 individuals who died, 29 of them weren’t vaccinated in any respect. And the one one that was vaccinated and died was a 68-year-old affected person,” Rivera stated throughout a press convention final week.
Dr. Indira Jiménez, who’s in control of the Covid-19 unit at Francisco Moscoso Cuello Hospital, instructed CNN that 90% of the contaminated sufferers arriving at her hospital had been unvaccinated or had solely acquired one shot.
“There was a really noticeable improve within the variety of contaminated sufferers. Those that are being admitted within the intensive care unit are coming to us already in important situation,” Jiménez stated. On Friday, there have been no out there ventilators in her hospital in any respect.
Dying charges are nonetheless far decrease than within the earlier days of the pandemic, nonetheless. Eighteen individuals died of Covid-19 the final week, in comparison with 165 deaths within the first week of February — the height for Covid-19 fatalities within the Dominican Republic up to now.
Lately Marte says he has additionally observed a brand new consider Covid-19 hospitalizations.
In truth, the Dominican Republic was the primary nation in Latin America to approve booster pictures, beginning with its well being care employees in July. It was not the one nation within the area to start out supplementing its Sinovac marketing campaign nonetheless.
“What I can inform you with very goal knowledge is that there is an infinite distinction between those that have acquired two Sinovac doses versus those who’ve added a Pfizer booster shot to these two Sinovac pictures,” Marte stated.
“In the entire nation there’s not a single particular person who has acquired a Pfizer booster shot and ended up hospitalized.”
Marte additionally stated that out of 17,000 Covid-19 sufferers seen at his hospital, solely 5 contracted the virus after getting the Pfizer booster shot. One was an 86-year-old affected person, and one other was a 78-year-old affected by diabetes and most cancers. None of these 5 in the end required admittance, he stated.
Reporting contributed by Jessica Hasbun in Santo Domingo, Rafael Romo in Mexico Metropolis, and Valentina DiDonato in Atlanta.
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