SANTO DOMINGO — There are now at least 8,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in a single Caribbean country, which saw a whopping 281 new cases today.
The Dominican Republic reached 8,235 cases yesterday as its death toll climbed by another 13 to 346.
According to the local representative of the Pan American Health Organization, Alma Morales, the record of new cases is due to the increase in the proportion of tests carried out in recent days.
Since the first day of the quarantine on March 20, the Dominican Republic has seen a constant uptick in cases to make it the epicenter of the virus in the Caribbean region.
While most other countries in the region are flattening the curve, the Spanish Caribbean island continues to uptick daily. There are now 6,118 active cases with 144 critical.
Only 1,771 have recovered to date. Minister of Health Rafael Sánchez Cárdena disclosed 1,507 people are in hospital isolation, 4,611 in-home isolation. Of the hospitalized, 132 are in the Intensive Care Unit; 42.42 percent in capital city Santo Domingo, and 40.15 percent in Santiago.
Some 54 percent or 4,415 of the confirmed cases are men.
The median age of the cases is 42 years.
At least 80 percent or 6,630 of the cases are concentrated in 12 municipalities. Many are in La Vega.
Italian people flying to New York City provided America with more COVID-19 infections than China by a 1,000-to-1 ratio. The Dominican Republic has not commented on how the coronavirus came to its shores.
La Romana, the sixth-largest city in the Dominican, is primarily favored by Italian tourists. The city’s name means “The Roman” in Spanish.
The Dominican Republic has a population of 10.40 million. In the region, only Cuba has more people with 11.25 million.