After almost two months of having detected the first case of COVID-19, Costa Rica still has no community contagion, registers the lowest mortality rate in the Americas (0.81%), has more recovered than active cases, and has made scientific progress in the study and treatment of the virus.
Despite the good numbers and the decline in the virus curve, the authorities insist on the need to maintain strict hygienic and restrictive measures.
Here are the keys to Costa Rica's amazingly good records, which include only 739 positive cases and 6 deaths as of Monday May 4.
A UNIVERSAL PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEMS
Despite the recurring political debate to guarantee the long-term sustainability of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS), Costa Rica has one of the best health systems at the international level, according to specialized reports.
The universality of the system ensures that people have free access to COVID-19 evidence, as long as they meet the established parameters to consider someone as a suspicious case.
In Costa Rica, a country with population of 5 million, the public system has 29 hospitals, as well as clinics and a small health area for practically each neighborhood called Basic Equipment for Comprehensive Care (Ebais), which are the first step in the health care system.
The Minister of Health, Daniel Salas, explained that this network has allowed daily personalized monitoring of COVID-19 patients and has also prevented the country from having community transmission of the virus, since practically all cases have their epidemiological link identified.
To deal with the pandemic, the CCSS set up a rehabilitation center to convert it into a 88-bed hospital dedicated exclusively to serving patients with COVID-19.
However, that hospital has been practically empty due to the few cases.
STRONG MEASURES AND ON TIME
As soon as it detected its first cases, in two American tourists, Costa Rica began to make decisions. The strongest is the closure of its borders for foreigners, a severe blow to the tourism sector, one of the engines of the country's economy and which predicts a 27% drop by 2020.
Costa Rica has not established a generalized quarantine, But it has ordered restrictions on the movement of vehicles, the closing of bars, clubs, cinemas, gyms, and the operation with diminished capacity of restaurants, shops and other small businesses.
As of May 1 and due to the decrease in the curve of active cases, the Government has begun to reopen some activities such as gyms, beauty salons, mechanical workshops and cinemas with limitations.
A POPULATION THAT HAS MADE THE CASE
The Minister of Health, a 43-year-old doctor and expert in epidemiology, has become a figure with a direct speech that has pleaded to the responsibility of the population.
"I occupy (I need) you to react, please react!" Was one of the phrases of the minister that became most popular when Costa Rica was just beginning to face the pandemic and the authorities advocated staying home.
Salas has congratulated the population on several occasions for complying, for the most part, with prevention and restriction measures, although on Monday after Easter he expressed his displeasure at seeing many people on the streets.
The president of the CCSS, Román Macaya, has been another of the figures with his almost daily appearances at press conferences, and one of his most remembered phrases is "we prepare for the worst, for scenarios that nobody wants."
He released this phrase in early April when he confirmed that the entity had purchased 3,000 body bags.
THE SCIENCE IN FRONT
The Clodomiro Picado Institute of the University of Costa Rica, created 50 years ago, specializes in the development of snake anti-venoms that it exports to various countries in the world, and is applying this technique to create a serum to treat to seriously ill COVID-19 patients.
The serum will be developed with plasma donated by recovered patients, since the body of these people generates an immunity to the virus.
The state-run National Center for Biotechnological Innovations (CENIBIOT), which is conducting research that aims to develop its own tests for the detection of the coronavirus.
For its part, the state-run Costa Rican Institute for Research and Teaching in Nutrition and Health (Incense), managed for the first time in the country's history to sequence the genome of a human virus: that of SARS COV-2, which causes COVID-19 .
This advance will allow us to know if the virus mutates over time, generate information that can be useful for developing vaccines, to know the dynamics and diversity of the viral population, the transmission routes in the country, among other uses.