Panama registered 1,676 new cases of covid-19 and 35 deaths from this disease in the last 24 hours, reported the Ministry of Health (Minsa) on Tuesday, 26 January.
With these figures, the number of accumulated cases reached 313,834 and that of deaths 5,137.
Case fatality rate remains at 1.6%.
The entity indicated that 4 deaths from previous dates were updated.
In the last 24 hours, 10,790 tests were applied to detect covid-19. In total, 1,629,815 tests have been carried out.
According to the epidemiological report of the Minsa, there are currently 42,202 active cases and 263,495 people recovered.
There are 42,504 confined patients, of them 42,000 are in their residences and 504 in hospital hotels; while 2,698 are hospitalized, of them 2,452 in ward and 246 in intensive care units.
NOTE:
Some observers 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, the method used in Panama to define 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.
There have also been reports on the inaccuracy of the PCR test, which would compromise the figures mentioned above.
In lack of better information sources, PanaTimes continues to publish reports with the government (Minsa) announced figures. Readers are adviced to use their own judgement. We are happy to publish more accurate reports, if they become available to us or our contributors.