Peruvian health authorities have confirmed 70,000 cases of SARS-CoV-2 in the first week of January, an official told reporters Monday as the Andean country was hit by a third wave of the pandemic attributed to the most contagious Omicron variant of Omicron.
Dante Cerso clarified that this number broke the previous record, which was 67,107 and was recorded in the second week of April 2021.
Peru was then being tested by the second wave of the pandemic, which resulted in the country having the worst COVID-19 mortality rate in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University in the United States. About 0.5% of the population has been lost due to COVID-19.
However, the death toll has not increased in proportion to the recent increase in cases, according to data from the Peruvian Ministry of Health. Other countries are finding that the death toll is lower despite the outbreak of infections.
More than 65% of the Peruvian population has received at least two doses of COVID-19 vaccine, according to data compiled by Our World in Data. Peru offers booster doses to all adults three months after the first two are completed.
Although Latin America has been hit hard by the pandemic, it is now the region with the highest vaccination rate in the world, according to Reuters.
Other countries in the region (Bolivia, Argentina) have the latest SARS-CoV-2 infection attributed to Omicron.
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