55% of ICU beds are occupied, but most are not due to covid

The occupancy of ICU beds in Colombia is at 55.7%, and although most are other diseases unrelated to covid those that have them occupied, the concern is due to the rapid advance of the omicron strain in the territory.

(Maintain ICUs, the postcovid task).

According to the Ministry of Health, as of January 5, the country has an availability of 44.35% of ICU beds. In other words, of the 10,946 actual ICU beds in the national territory, 45.31% are occupied. Of these, 748 correspond to confirmed cases of covid-19; 321 to suspected cases; 5,022 to other diseases and a remaining 4,855 are available.

The territories with the lowest availability of beds at the national level are: Antioquia with 22%; Tolima with 27.62% and Bolívar with 29.07%. In addition, according to the Special Health Service Registry, it indicates that, in recent months, the covid care curve is concentrated in people in the age groups located between 40 and 90 years; which shows the importance of applying booster doses in this population.

THE ADVANCEMENT OF ÓMICRON

According to weekly monitoring of the presence of omicron in Colombia made by the National Institute of Health, the variant is already more than 60% of the reported cases, in addition the gamma, delta and mu variants of interest continue to be the most predominant in the country. But the circulation of the omicron variant is confirmed in Atlántico, Antioquia, Bogotá, Bolivar, Córdoba, Magdalena, Quindio and Valle del Cauca.

In Colombia to date, the circulation of 162 lineages has been confirmed (79 delta variant sublineages and 2 mu variant). In addition, the country exceeds 11,000 genomes reported so far by health authorities.

In Colombia, 16,259 new infections were reported on January 5 (a figure that had not been recorded since July 2021) and there are there are currently 73,378 active cases of the disease.

For the Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz, as the omicron variant became the dominant one in the national territory, “this implies adapting guidelines to the clinical characteristics of the variant”.

In her turn, Dr. Carolina Corcho, Vice President of the Federation Colombian Medical, pointed out that “before the advance of the omicron in Colombia, the sector requires that the Ministry of Health, present information in as much real time as possible on ICU occupancy, hospitalization beds, ion, and management in emergency services. We cannot face this wave again, from the blindness of the absence of information”, he exposed.

In addition, Cork has been emphatic in pointing out that the daily cases expected for the coming weeks and that the Government estimates at almost 40,000 daily, will be higher.

“ In Colombia they are also increasing the number of tests because their guard has been lowered with isolation, tests, biosecurity measures and social distancing and it has been evident, this could lead to doubling the record number of daily infections to over 60,000. ”, added the expert.

In the country, in addition, the average times between the date of onset of symptoms and diagnoses are in 6.8 days, the places where it takes longer are Chocó, Meta and Santa Marta with 15, Amazonas, Guainía, Cesar and Quindio with 14 and in Bolívar, Cordoba, Cauca, Cundinamarca and Risaralda it can be up to 13 days.