ABSTRACT
Introduction: The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has spread among the population of Costa Rica and has had a great global impact. However, there are important geographic differences in mortality from COVID-19 among world regions and within Costa Rica.Objective: To explore the effect of some sociodemographic factors on COVID-19 mortality in the small geo-graphic divisions or cantons of Costa Rica.Methods: We used official records and applied a classical epidemiological Poisson regression model and a geographically weighted regression model.Results: We obtained a lower Akaike Information Criterion with the weighted regression (927.1 in Poisson regression versus 358.4 in weighted regression). The cantons with higher risk of mortality from COVID-19 had a denser population;higher material well-being;less population by health service units and are located near the Pacific coast.Conclusions: A specific COVID-19 intervention strategy should concentrate on Pacific coast areas with denser population, higher material well-being and less population by health service units.
ABSTRACT
The objective of this paper is to present a series of policies for the control of the COVID-19 pandemic by the Costa Rican authorities. An exhaustive review of the pandemic control policies was made in the official government media, mainly the Ministry of Health and the Costa Rican Social Security Fund and some collective media. The first wave of the pandemic in Costa Rica was quite mild, allowing the government to address it with a series of quite effective suppression and mitigation measures, which had the unrestricted support of the population. The second wave grew aggressively, causing social discontent due to the economic impact. Due to the ineffectiveness of the “hammer and dance” strategy, the Costa Rican government has rethought that strategy, lifting certain restrictions while recognizing the risk involved in terms of the increase in cases of COVID-19 in cases and deaths. © 2020 Academia Nacional de Medicina. All rights reserved.