This content was published on 02 September 2021 – 00:18
Guatemala City, Sep 1 (EFE) .- Guatemala on Wednesday exceeded 12,000 deaths from covid-19 with its hospitals saturated, including the Parque de la Industria, in the country’s capital, which does not accept more patients as it is collapsed and without inputs.
The Ministry of Health indicated in the update of the pandemic data that in the last 24 hours, 81 new deaths from covid-19 were counted for a total of 12,007 deaths.
In addition, the Central American country adds 475,548 positive cases of the disease, 5,322 of them detected on Wednesday after processing 16,712 tests in both the public and private spheres.
Guatemala has been in the third wave of the disease since last June 14, as detailed at that time by the Minister of Health, Amelia Flores.
The situation has worsened in recent weeks, with the country’s main hospitals saturated with seriously ill patients from covid-19, with a hospital occupancy of 97%, according to official figures.
The Parque de la Industria hospital, created in 2020 only to face the pandemic, is one of the hospitals that does not have more capacity and whose doctors and nurses requested help this Wednesday due to the excess of patients.
In a statement, the hospital reported that they will no longer receive more patients as they are over their capacity and suggested that COVID-19 carriers seek other alternatives.
The doctors of said hospital also urged the government of the president, Alejandro Giammattei, in a press conference to deliver supplies to care for patients as they are currently “insufficient”.
According to the Vice Minister of Health, Francisco Coma, in statements to a radio station, 60% of patients who arrive at hospitals are affected by the delta variant of the coronavirus.
Guatemala has one of the lowest rates of complete vaccination (two doses) in Latin America, according to international organizations, since only 1.2 million people of the 16.3 million who live in the country have been injected twice.
The numbers of deaths and infections in Guatemala are the highest in Central America. EFE
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