Panama recorded 8 deaths and 222 cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, raising deaths to 74 and 2,974 confirmed contagions on Friday, their health authorities said. Of the total of 2,974 confirmed cases, 304 patients are hospitalized, 200 of them wards and 104 in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), while the rest are in home isolation.
The range of people over the age of 60 still has the highest number of deaths, with 55 of the 74 recorded so far. Panama has a cumulative 13,648 diagnostic tests conducted – 1,065 more in the last 24 hours – of which 77% have been negative and the remaining 23% positive.” For a total population of Panama of 4,278,500 people, 3,189.9 tests per million people have been conducted,” said the Director of Epidemiology of the Ministry of Health, Lourdes Moreno.The authorities reiterated the call to the population to respect the indefinite national quarantine in force since March 25, as another 671 people were held yesterday throughout the country precisely to walk on the street , and they recalled that this weekend there must be “zero mobility”. Panamanian Deputy Health Deputy Minister Luis Francisco Sucre said that respect for social estrangement standards will allow “next week to see favorable results” of the containment strategy implemented in his country, the most punished by COVID-19 in Centroamérica.La indefinite national quarantine has been gradually hardened and currently allows people to leave two hours a day depending on the gender of the population , a temporary measure that seeks to get 50% of people off the streets every day. There is a sector of the population that can be mobilized with safe conduct because it works in basic sectors that remain active, such as health, food, transport and communications, among others, while non-essential shops and industries and schools have been closed since the second week of March. To get the latest news about coronavirus, sign up by clicking on this space and we’ll send you the information instantly.
