Epidemiologist Ernesto Guerrero considers that 8 out of 10 with flu symptoms have Covid, as reported in N Digital. He said people with flu-like symptoms are not bothering to get tested and just staying at home to recover.
The director of the Promese, the government pharmaceuticals division, Dr. Adolfo Perez says the public sector has a stock of 950,000 tests. He confirmed the extraordinary demand for cold medicine at government-owned pharmacies. Nevertheless, long queues at public hospitals and the high cost of the test at private labs discourage people from getting tested.
Free PCR and antigen tests are available at larger public hospitals but queues are long. People are concerned if they don’t have the virus, they will pick it up going for the test.
Private labs require a person to first pay for an antigen test (around RD$2,000) to be tested for a PCR. Insurance only covers one PCR per year and does not cover antigen tests. As a result, most people are just treating the virus as a common cold and hoping for the best.
Dr. Guerrero assured that the 2,856 new cases reported on Sunday, January 2, (Bulletin #655) are not even close to the real figures. He estimated that at least 200,000 people contracted the virus in one day, but they are not official because most people are not testing.
“How much does it cost to get a covid test? Four thousand pesos, everyone who has the flu now, is not going to get it done now. People who have money, middle and upper-middle class, who are going for testing, below that, multiply it by 100,” Guerrero said when interviewed by N Digital.
He explained that the flu symptoms are similar to those of Omicron, the new variant of Covid currently circulating in the country and the cause of the increases in the daily numbers of the virus, so citizens are careless and do not get tested to rule out being positive.
He expects the “tsunami” of new infections will continue through January, and will begin to decrease at the end of the month and beginning of February.
While cases are increasing, as reflected in Covid-19 Bulletin #655, the number of hospitalizations and deaths continues low. The fatality rate in the Dominican Republic is 1%. Bulletin #655 reports 10,999 active cases, 2,856 PCR recorded cases, 6,457 PCR tests.
By global standards, the Dominican Republic has been relatively successful at treating Covid-19 and keeping the number of deaths low. For the 2 January 2022 deadline, Worldometer lists the 1M deaths per inhabitant rate for the Dominican Republic at 386. According to the same 1M deaths statistics, fewer people have died of Covid-19 in the Dominican Republic than in Brazil at 2,882, Argentina at 2,558, Colombia at 2,515, the United States at 2,538, Italy at 2,284, the United Kingdom at 2,175, Russia at 2,132, Spain at 1,911, France at 1,893, Germany 1,341 and Canada at 794.
As worldwide, those most susceptible to the virus are persons with hypertension (23.85% of the deaths), diabetes and obesity (14.89% of the deaths).
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Health says it is investigating the possibility of some cases being a double whammy – Covid-19 and influenza. Some 40 samples tested at the Dr. Defilló government lab still do not show anyone having the double-whammy. Nevertheless, Diario Libre reports of a case of journalist Dolfi Gomez who tested positive for both Covid-19 and influenza.
Read more in Spanish:
N Digital
Listin Diario
Listin Diario
Listin Diario
El Caribe
El Caribe
Listin Diario
4 January 2022