With a mass vaccination program in place, the Dominican Republic faces the uncertainty of whether the imminent entry of the Delta Covid-19 variant will cause a major outbreak as has occurred in Florida.
Listin Diario and Mariasela Alvarez (Esta Noche con Mariasela) interviewed Denise Gomez, a Dominican dentist with global health studies at John Hopkins University, who urges the Dominican government to carry out more sequencing tests and contact tracing to catch the entry of the Delta variant early. Gomez says that if actions are not taken, the DR could be seeing the outbreak driving more than 3,000 a day by October. At present, daily reported cases have kept under 300.
Dr. Ronald Skewes, director of Epidemiology, is hoping the increasing numbers of people that are vaccinated will reduce the impact of a surge in cases due to the new variants.
Local experts say that the vaccination coverage has reduced more than 70% the number of persons with Covid-19 that have needed to be hospitalized. Experts continue to urge people to keep to the known protective measures to avoid the spread of the virus.
Esta Noche con Mariasela
El Caribe
DR1 News – Covid-19 Bulletin 531
2 September 2021