:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/OHEB5Y4S3JEGJM2U6B2IPERKHA.jpg "Colombia: vaccination reduced by 50% deaths in people over 70 years of age due to COVID-19 in Bogotá")
Bogotá highlighted this Sunday that thanks to vaccination the mortality of adults over 70 years of age was reduced by 50% during the third peak of the coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic, which has been the longest and deadliest since the start of the health emergency in Colombia.
“In the face of death cases, a 50% decrease in deaths from covid-19 has been documented compared to the first peak”, the Mayor of the city stressed, although he clarified that the data are preliminary and that is why it is convenient to continue monitoring the figures until the third peak ends.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, some 50,000 people over the age of 70 have tested positive for coronavirus and 8,934 of them have died from the disease, a figure that represents half of the more than 16,000 fatalities due to covid-19 that have been confirmed in the Colombian capital.
The epidemiological surveillance team of the Ministry of Health also found that with the implementation of vaccination of older adults there has been a 20% decrease in active cases in the population over 70 years of age.
Another benefit of vaccination, which began last February throughout the country, is that in the cases of adults over 80 years of age a reduction of 39% was found during this third peak of the pandemic, compared to the two peaks previous.
There has also been a decrease in the outbreaks presented in the homes of protection to the elderly and a decrease of 51% has been observed compared to what was registered in the second and third peaks.
“By age range, the greatest decrease in these outbreaks is observed in the population over 80 years old,” the information added.
Bogota is the region most affected by coronavirus and has accumulated 895,177 infections of the 3,210,787 reported in the country since the beginning of the pandemic.
The Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz, considered last Friday that some areas, such as Bogotá, Cundinamarca, Boyacá and Nariño, are in a “double third peak of contagion”, since since Easter, when cases began to increase exponentially , it has not been possible to reduce the hospital burden.
This double third peak is “presumably attributable to new strains and agglomerations from previous weeks,” according to the minister.