Peru has announced new lockdowns for 10 of its 25 regions, including the capital Lima, as Covid-19 cases rise and hospitals reach a breaking point. The lockdowns will begin on January 31 and are going to end on February 14, 2021. It has been decided that there will be a curfew during this period from 8 pm to 4 am. Personal vehicles will not be permitted to hit the roads on Saturdays and Sundays. Also, people will be permitted to leave their homes only to purchase basic necessities, and are required to work from home.
The nation can be racing to deal with a shortage of intensive care unit (ICU) beds for Covid-19 patients, Peru’s President Francisco Sagasti, stated throughout a televised address on Tuesday evening.” We anticipate to add another 350 (beds) in the next two weeks,” he said
Alicia Abanto, an official at Peru’s Ombudsman office said the announcement was a very good step amid the aggressive second wave, but it probably will not be enough, she explained that 1,829 of Peru’s 1,931 ICU beds within the nation are currently occupied. “There are only 102 beds available across the nation, and this figure is not sufficient for a country with 25 regions,”
In the meantime, Jesus Valverde, President of the Society of Intensive Medicine and a doctor at Dos de Mayo Hospital in Lima stated that we requested health officers to not add any extra beds — because there aren’t sufficient doctors to cover them. Doctors are stretched too thin across the nation, he says. All 50 beds in his hospital’s ICU beds are occupied, and his colleagues are “exhausted, tired, sick,” he says. Nationwide, protecting the more than 1,800 occupied ICU beds would ideally require 1,250 doctors, he stated. As a substitute, the nation’s “600 doctors are working double or triple shifts to cover this shortfall.”
According to data released by the country’s Health Ministry, Peru recorded 100,000 new cases in the last month alone.
