Panama reports 14 new deaths from COVID-19, exceeds 109,000 cases
The Ministry of Health of Panama (Minsa) reported 705 new cases of COVID-19 and 14 deaths in the last 24 hours.
With these figures, the country accumulates 109,431 cases in total and 2,311 deaths from this virus, which represents a case fatality of 2.1%.
In the last 24 hours, 5,532 new tests were carried out to detect COVID-19 for a 12.7% positivity.
There are a total of 20,962 active cases and a total of 86,158 recovered patients, according to the epidemiological report of the Minsa.
Of the active patients, there are a total of 20,129 in isolation, of which 19,777 are at home and 352 in hotels, while 833 are hospitalized, of them 712 in the ward and 121 in intensive care.
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.