A 61-year-old woman is the last fatality from covid in Medellín reported by the Ministry of Health on March 24. Since then, the capital of Antioquia has been absent from the list of deaths from the virus, which both in the department and in the country indicates figures only comparable with the first days of the pandemic, which confirms the INS forecast that the end of the pandemic is very close.
And although four days without reports is tremendous news, the real picture is still much more favorable, because although it was only reported until March 24, the true date of the last death from covid in Medellín was March 17, it means that for 12 days no one has died from the virus in the city.
In the last four days, Antioquia reported five deaths, the last of these in the report of Monday, March 28, in Yarumal.
In the department, ICU occupancy is 81% and only 15 patients occupy an intensive care unit due to the virus. Antioquia has only 177 active cases.
The good streak came this week with another advance in the vaccination plan, at the beginning of the reinforcement stage for the population between 12 and 17 years of age, a major challenge for the department if one takes into account that currently there are more than 100,000 children and young people in this age range who don’t even have completed their vaccination schedule.
The departmental vaccination board indicates that there are almost 300,000 children and young people between 12 and 17 years of age who are currently eligible to receive booster doses.
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The problem is that vaccination in the department seems to have reached a ceiling. March barely exceeded 400,000 applied doses, while there are subregions such as Bajo Cauca, Northeast and Middle Magdalena that are still far from the goal of 70% of the population fully vaccinated established by the National Government four months ago.
72% of the population of Antioquia has a daily scheme. The latest report from the vaccination board, updated on March 27, indicates that there are 1.8 million people in the department pending one or both doses.
The Departmental and Medellín Health Secretariats have not updated the balance of how successful the active search strategy for unvaccinated people in neighborhoods, villages and educational institutions has been.
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