The City of Buenos Aires presented in the last two weeks a “high” probability that its inhabitants have contact with someone with coronavirus and in nine other provinces there is a “medium” risk of this happening, according to the variables established by the National Ministry of Health, although this has so far had no impact on the number of hospitalizations or deaths from the disease, which continue to decline.
“This analysis does not have to do with the situation of the jurisdiction in terms of its response capacity or with an increase in hospitalizations or deaths, but with the analysis of two variables set by the Ministry to measure the risk of becoming infected that there may be in a place,” he explained to Télam the physicist and researcher from Conicet Jorge Aliaga.
These variables, continued the specialist, “are the incidence (number of people with coronavirus notified per hundred thousand inhabitants in the last 14 days) and the ratio (which is the quotient between the confirmed cases in the last 14 days over that total of the previous 14 days).
“When this last variable is greater than 1.20, it means that the increase is greater than 20%,” he specified.
Based on the numbers that these variables throw, the Ministry determines that in a jurisdiction there is a high, medium or low risk that its inhabitants are in contact with someone who has coronavirus.
“When analyzing the data published this Monday in the Ministry’s database, what is found is that The City of Buenos Aires presents an incidence of 278 cases notified per hundred thousand inhabitants in the last 14 daysand that the ratio is 2.15, with which the combination of these values yields a high risk,” Aliaga explained.
Continuing with the ratio and incidence analysis, there is nine provinces that currently present a medium risk of contagion. Some still present few cases per 100,000 inhabitants, but the growth of the last 14 days is high: such is the case of Tucumanwhich presented 7 cases per 100 thousand inhabitants with a growth of 1.40; San Juanwhich had 8 notifications per 100 thousand with a ratio of 1.58; Jujuy 2 per 100 thousand with a growth of 1.44, and Chacowith 2 cases per 100 thousand and a ratio of 1.26.
For its part, Missions presented 65 cases per 100 thousand with a growth of 1.1.
In the case of The Pampaboth the incidence and the ratio are high: 105 cases per 100,000 inhabitants were registered and the growth in notifications was 2.2.
In Corrientes, the growth of cases was the highest in the country (ratio of 2.94) and 45 cases were accumulated per 100 thousand inhabitants, while in Cordova growth was 1.69 with 40 cases notified per 100 thousand, something similar to the behavior in the Buenos Aires provincewith 38 cumulative notifications per 100,000 and a ratio of 1.96.
In the rest of the country, the risk is low because the growth of the last 14 days is less than 20 percent and the accumulated cases are less than 50 per hundred thousand inhabitants or because the number of accumulated cases is less than 150 but the ratio is less than 0.8, that is to say that there was no growth in notifications.
At the national level, 17,646 notifications were reported in this last week, 76 people died, and 295 people admitted to Intensive Care Units with coronavirus.
In Buenos Aires city, while, 6,448 new cases of coronavirus and 12 deaths were reported this Monday in the last week, which means 86.57% more infections compared to the previous week (3,456) and triple the number of deaths (4).
“As what we expected, with the arrival of the cold, a sustained growth of the cases detected in Argentina begins to be seen. In fact, by date of diagnosis, the growth is 76% of the last seven days and, by date of report, is 54%,” he said for his part the accountant Martín Barrionuevo, who analyzes official data since the beginning of the pandemic.
In this framework, he continued: “This growth is also accompanied by an increase in positivity. The city of Buenos Aires, for example, already had two days of more than a thousand cases.”
However, Barrionuevo pointed out that “we have to learn to see the cases detected with another prism, no longer with the alarm they generated before because, in fact, the number of people hospitalized in intensive care continues to drop.”
“However,” he added, “these figures have to help us know that we have to continue taking care of ourselves (ventilation and use of chinstraps indoors) and get vaccinated, in case we have not completed schemes or reinforcements.”
Specialists also recalled that there is a change in the current testing criteria for April (there is only an indication to perform the test on people over 50 or people with comorbidities)so the statistics reflect only “one floor of cases”.
