The Minister of Health announced that for Wednesday July 1st Costa Rica had the highest daily spike in the number of new cases since the pandemic started back in March 6. 294 new cases in just one day, bringing the total to 3,753. The country also registered its 17th death of a Covid-19 positive patient. 56 people are currently hospitalized and 6 of them in the intensive care unit.

Considering the high increase in cases President Carlos Alvarado said that new sanitary measures and restrictions will be announced this Thursday, July 2, the same will be going into effect on Friday, July 3 and for at least one week.

“The measures will apply for at least one week, closures will not affect the entire country, but clearly some areas of the Great Metropolitan Area (San Jose, Alajuela, Cartago, Heredia). Sadly, the actions we have taken to move forward in reactivation stages has been interpreted by many as social reopening, a situation that is causing this increase. We insist in the fact that all of us can make a difference in the future of Costa Rica”, stated Minister Daniel Salas.

Mario Ruiz Cubillo, Medical Manager of the Social Security Service (CCSS) warned last week that “the capacity (of the health system) if the number of cases continues to increase, will exhaust the moment we reach more than 250 cases a day”. “Once again we are clear on this, no health system in the world, not ours, or any other, can take an exponential increase in cases”,

The county of San José currently has the highest number of active cases with 381, followed by Desamparados with 189, Alajuelita (163), Alajuela (129), Heredia (123), Goicoechea (51), La Union (46), Escazú (31), Tibás (29), Curridabat (28), Santa Ana (25), Coronado with 24 and Moravia with 22.