Cover photo: Sebastián Enriquez / OjoPúblico
A report from a local newspaper has confirmed that Piura, a city in the north of Peru, has not registered deaths from the disease in the last 24 hours.
The report of new figures was announced through DIRESA – Piura, the Regional Directorate of Health based in Piura. So far, the number of deceased remains at 1611 people.
It should be remembered that the sub-registry of deaths is possible due to the number of families with an infected relative who decides not to go to a hospital for financial reasons, for fear of the health center, or fears that the relative will die alone.
In an IDL-Reporters study, on the same day 330 deaths were reported in May, the cremation record of “confirmed and suspected” cases of COVID-19 reported 1073 deaths. One of the reasons could be the slowness of the state in updating the numbers, doing it with a day or two of lag. However, this type of variability in the recount is due to the fact that the state, as a standard measure, considers it important to report confirmed data rather than estimates, which means that it would be more technical than a political issue.
A very clear example of a case similar to that of Piura occurred in New York on July 11, where it was reported that on that date there were no deaths from the coronavirus in 24 hours. However, days later it was revealed that in fact, the number of deaths was 13.
As of yesterday, July 21st, 24 new deaths were reported, while the number of those infected did continue to increase until today, July 22nd, reporting 245 new people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic virus.
Piura remains to be the region with the highest number of infected people in northern Peru, followed by La Libertad and Lambayeque.