The COVID pandemic in the Americas was “undoubtedly worse” in 2021, when the region recorded three times as many infections and deaths as the previous year, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said Wednesday.
PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said at a press conference that the second year of the pandemic marked and challenged the American continent.
“When we compare 2020 to 2021, this year was undoubtedly worse,” he said. “We saw three times as many COVID infections and deaths in this second year of the pandemic than in 2020.”
“Hospitals were operating on the brink, vital medicines and supplies were in short supply, and our healthcare systems were put to the test like never before,” he added.
The first imported case of covid in the Americas was identified on January 21, 2020 in the United States. Since then, more than 98 million people in the region have suffered from the disease and more than 2.3 million have died, according to official figures compiled by PAHO.
The American continent has been especially hit by the new coronavirus, concentrating more than a third of all infections and one in four deaths from COVID-19 reported worldwide.
Etienne said that in the past week, the Americas reported more than 926,000 new COVID infections, an 18.4% increase in cases over the previous weeks.
The resurgence of cases was registered in particular in the United States and Canada, as well as in Panama, where there has been a “constant” increase in infections in the last month, and also in Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Trinidad and Tobago.
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