Colombia is entering a new pandemic peak due to omicron variant, according to health authorities

Colombia is entering a new peak of covid-19 infections due to the omicron variant, Health Minister Fernando Ruiz warned this Wednesday, who said that the health authorities will take a series of measures and recommendations to address the situation.

“The genomic diagnosis is a matter of days, but now we have to take a series of measures and recommendations especially to be able to address this new variant in the country and its affectation,” Ruiz said, quoted in a statement from his office.

The minister assured that the factors that allow them to affirm that the probability that the country is entering a new peak are epidemiological conditions, reports from health services and the clinical picture of those who go to hospitals to be treated for covid -19.

Precisely on Tuesday, Colombia added 4,306 positive cases of covid-19, the highest number since August 11 when it reported 5,368, a sign that the pandemic is on the rise again after a prolonged period of decline.

With yesterday’s cases the country accumulates 5,132,277 infections since the first infection was registered on March 6, 2020.

Although infections are increasing, the number of fatalities remains at the average of recent weeks and the country registered 35 deaths this Tuesday, for a total of 129,833 deaths from the covid-19 pandemic.

Along these lines, Ruiz recalled that omicron is characterized because its level of contagion is between five and ten times higher than the delta variant, which has caused very rapid peaks and accelerated growth in other countries of the world.

“This is a matter of days to a few weeks, in which the countries have been presenting this new peak,” the minister stressed, adding: “we believe that we are at the beginning of the peak generated by omicron.”

The omicron variant was detected in Colombia on December 20.

Getting vaccinated, the best defense

Although there are no certainties about what may happen in this new peak, the Ministry of Health stressed that Colombia has a high level of protection thanks to vaccination and hybrid immunity, which is given by the prevalence of the virus in people and also by the serums against covid-19.

According to the Ministry of Health, on Sunday 32,260 vaccines against covid-19 were applied, of which 14,685 correspond to second doses and 1,389 to the single-dose formula of the pharmaceutical company Janssen.

With those data, In Colombia, 63.7 million vaccines have been applied and 27.8 million people have their complete scheme, while 3,000,665 people have already received the booster dose.

In this context, Ruiz assured that the end of the year festivities are the time of “more interactions”, for which he called on citizens to “be very responsible” because Bogotá, Cali and Medellín already have a hinted peak.

“So here the call to people is to have moderation in crowds, to use masks and especially reinforcement in vaccination,” he said. (I)