The director of the Metropolitan Health Region, Israel Cedeño, who released the report on August 11, said that these figures increase deaths to 1,680 and accumulated cases to 76,464.

The new infections were detected after the application of 3,037 tests, with which a total of 255,418 tests were applied, since last March when the first case of the new coronavirus was officially detected in the country. The percentage of positivity of the last tests was 36%, said Cedeño.

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There have been 50,665 recoveries (1,155 new), while the active cases total 24,119.

There are 22,450 people in home isolation, of which 21,872 are at home and 578 in so-called hospital hotels.

Cedeño said that 1,669 patients are hospitalized, of this number 1,509 remain in the ward and 160 in intensive care units.

Rt keeps going down

The director of the Metropolitan Health Region, reported that the effective reproductive number of cases (Rt) or average value of the contagion rate went from 1.13 to 1.07 in the epidemiological week from August 2 to 8. Ideally, the Rt is 1 or less than 1.

The director explained that since last July 27 there has been a decrease in the duplication time of cases, which allows a slowdown in cases. The same happens with the daily death rate that is down.

The director mentioned that the townships where more new cases of the virus are occurring are: Aguadulce, province of Coclé; Rambala, in Bocas del Toro; La Mesa, in Los Santos and Canto del Llano, Atalaya and Soná in the province of Veraguas.

Some of the townships with the most accumulated cases, but which are now achieving a decrease are: Tocumen (East Panama), Calidonia (Panama metro) and Puerto Caimito (La Chorrera).