December already has more confirmed cases of COVID-19 than the previous four months, in Ecuador

A few days after the end of the year, this December is already the month in which more cases of COVID-19 in relation to the four previous months. With the most recent report from the Ministry of Public Health (MSP), the confirmed cases in Ecuador in December reached 15.272, the highest figure since last August.

This rebound coincides with the arrival of the omicron variant to the country. The first case corresponded to a citizen who returned on December 10 from South Africa, where this new strain was identified for the first time. Yesterday, the MSP declared the community contagion of this variant, with the majority of cases detected in Guayas.

These statistics also show that 16% of the tests processed in December were positive, while in August that indicator reached 18%.

According to the daily reports of the MSP, in the last fifteen days, they confirmed more cases per capita in four provinces. In Napo, ten cases were detected for every 10,000 inhabitants; while in Pichincha, El Oro and Sucumbíos, eight.

These provinces are followed by Guayas and Manabí with six cases per 10,000 inhabitants.

Since last week, the MSP began to publish the weekly data of the pandemic in a new repository. These data show that confirmed cases had a rebound in the second week of December, when 3,301 cases were reported. Such a figure had not been reached since the first week of August.

Likewise, the MSP figures show that this new wave of infections has not caused an increase in deaths so far both confirmed and probable by COVID-19, as it did in the previous wave that had its peak in mid-April of this year.

Official statistics also show that there has been a slight increase in hospital bed occupancy for the treatment of this disease, especially in intensive care units. Since the end of November, the occupancy is around 45% of the available units.

(I)