Panama raises its number of deaths from COVID-19 to 2,348 and with 722 new cases, the country registers 111,277 infections of the virus at the national level, as reported by the Ministry of Health (Minsa).
According to the epidemiological report of this Monday, September 28, 87,695 clinically recovered patients are reported.
To date, 4,476 tests were applied, for a percentage of positivity of 16.1% and 8 new deaths have been registered, for a case fatality of 2.1%.
Active patients total 21,234, 20,434 people are reported in home isolation, of which 20,056 are at home and 378 in hotels. There are 800 hospitalized and 690 of them are in the ward and 110 in the ICU.
NOTE:
Some critics have argued that the Minsa reported case fatality rate (number of COVID linked deaths / number of known cases) in reality should be much lower, as the number of reported cases does not necessarily reflect the truth, as the testing does not cover the whole population, and many cases go undetected. At the same time, the government can't report what they don't know, but readers should note that the numbers may tell a different story from the reality.
Also, how a "COVID death" is counted is also unclear, as many of the deaths correspond to underlying previous conditions, such as cancer, blood diseases, other age related diseases etc., and are reported as COVID deaths since the patient also had the coronavirus. On the other hand, many viruses are known to lower the patient's immunity and expose them to other diseases. As an example most HIV/AIDS patients don't die from the virus itself, but from other derived diseases such as pneumonia or regular flu.
In lack of better information sources, PanaTimes continues to report the government (Minsa) announced figures. Readers are adviced to use their own judgement.