Think better before going out into the street in the middle of a downpour or entering a place with crowds. Why? The covid rebounded in the number of infections in the last week. And there is an alert, since the increase was 352% and put the Ministry of Health on guard, because, in just 8 days, the positive cases went from being between 600 and 700 to 2,112, which augurs a complex first week of December in epidemiological matters.
In addition to this, the country faces the presence of a new lineage of the virus, known as BQ.1 x, of which the National Institute of Health (INS) affirmed that “until the delivery of the report dated November 6, it represents a little more than a third of the infections (34.6%)”.
For this reason, the Government bought 3.7 million more vaccines against the virus and expects to acquire another 5.1 million in the first half of 2023, as confirmed by that portfolio.
And it is that in the last six months of this year the variation in the number of infections has been in constant movement. The weekly average of infections per million inhabitants was 32.44 in May, 169.69 in June and 459.4 in July (see graph). After this increase came a sustained decline until October: in August it was 143.53, in September 29.27 and in October 9.14. But in November this figure rose to 19.80.
“People relaxed”
Just three months after the three years of the start of the covid-19 pandemic, it is strange for many that people continue to talk about infections, spikes and vaccination. However, this situation was seen to come due to the relaxation of citizenship.
In that way? The epidemiologist from the Universidad del Rosario, Carlos Trillos, told EL COLOMBIANO that “before the winter season, cases of respiratory diseases have increased, as well as cases of covid, hospitalizations and emergencies.”
This situation, explains Trillos, is due to the fact that “people are relaxed, they stopped using masks in certain places (such as public transport) and they believed that they did not need more doses, beyond the first two.”
In fact, the figures for the progress of immunization against the virus (depending on the manufacturing laboratory, it has a different effect over time) prove the epidemiologist right. According to the Ministry of Health, the number of booster doses, as of November 22, is 14,464,311; while the second reinforcement (that is, a fourth) is 2,090,712. This contrasts with the more than 36 and 30 million first and second doses, respectively.
For this reason, Carlos Trillos added that “the important thing is that people who have respiratory symptoms get tested for covid-19 and stop believing that only two doses were enough.” And, he added, one should think about the return of public transport, health services, nursing homes and where there are crowds.
This rebound in infections, which in 2020 put the world and the economy in jeopardy, can make the end of the year bitter for more than one. For this reason, self-care includes overcoming this alert, which is also accompanied by cases of respiratory syncytial, adenovirus, rhinovirus, and type A and type B influenza.
It will now also be the task of the Administrative Entities of Health Benefit Plans to search for those who refused to apply the vaccine, by their own decision or due to misinformation. And citizens must temper their overconfidence.
