Unique Health Care System in Costa Rica

In my blog post earlier this year regarding Covid-19 (March 15, 2021), the numbers indicated that Costa Rica was doing better than Canada and the United States. The focus was on mortality. If you caught Covid-19, what were your chances of survival compared to Canada or the United States? It appears that Costa Rica continues to do better.

As the table below indicates, this continues to be the case:

Back in March, I speculated that this might be because on average those who live in Costa Rica spend more time exposed to outside air than those who live in Canada or the United States. I did not clarify, but I had in mind that one or the other or both of central air conditioning and central heating is relatively common in both countries. This might not provide a particularly healthy environment for controlling the spread of the virus.

Now comes to light another possible reason why Costa Rica has been faring better. It has a unique health care system. Specifically, Costa Rica has a health care model which combines a tiered universal medicare system with an unrestricted private care system: see Atul Gawande, "Costa Ricans Live Longer Than Us. What’s the Secret?”, The New Yorker magazine, August 23, 2021.

While Canada has a universal medicare system, it is not tiered like that in Costa Rica. Moreover, Canada severely restricts the services which can be provided by private enterprise. In the United States, the private care system is essentially unrestricted as it is in Costa Rica. However, while the United States has a medicare system, it is restrictive and far from being universal. Neither Canada nor the United States has a health care system which reaches down to individual households in a proactive manner as described by Atul Gawande.

We have experienced the proactive approach in Costa Rica. Two examples: (1) as described in my blog post on March 19, 2021, Lance got a personal telephone call out of the blue from a doctor at our local EBAIS to schedule an appointment for our first of two Covid-19 shots. I might be wrong, but I doubt that any person in Canada or the United States ever got such a call from any health care authority. (2) shortly after moving to Grecia/Hacienda El Paseo in 2018 and signing up with our local EBAIS, we were surprisingly visited by two medics.

As the New Yorker magazine article indicates, these medics are referred to as “ATAP" (Asistente Técnico en Atención Primaria) - trained community health care workers. They wanted to give us flu shots which we respectfully declined because neither of us had ever had flu shots (or ever had the flu over a period of decades). They also gave us pills for intestinal parasites - very common in tropical countries.

They also inspected our property indoor and out for cleanliness, etc. Their only recommendation was that we get rid of an outdoor pool of water which could provide a breeding ground for some mosquitos that are responsible for dengue fever - a fever which is survivable but not pleasant. We got rid of the “pool”. The pool was a relatively small plastic, rectangular container on the ground filled with water (usually rain water). Various species of birds found the pool and relished the opportunity to take a bird bath. That’s why we kept it until advised by the medics not to do so.

Available at Last! The Road Trip to Arenal Videos!

Last year I gave Lance a car cam for his birthday. We decided to try it out on a road trip and we  chose Arenal volcano as our destination. I made reservations at the Arenal Manoa Resort Hotel and Hot Springs.

Caveat: There are seven different videos posted. YouTube won’t accept individual videos longer then 15 minutes (without going through an administrative process) so we broke up all the videos into less then 15 minute segments. Also, most of them are of driving on the roads to and from Arenal - so some may find them boring. Others who have never been to Costa Rica might find them very interesting. You decide.

This trip we remembered to bring Kermit with us and he was very happy.

I have added photos of Manoa resort after the final video - #7.

Maps of our routes going to Arenal Manoa Resort and returning home are as follows:

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Video #1 is of us leaving our house and starting out to Arenal Manoa Resort. We drive over the stone bridge (puente de piedra) which is where our neighbourhood got its name from.

Video #2 - we are on highway 1 (aka Interamerican or Pan American Highway) headed towards San Ramon.

Video #3 - After San Ramon, rain starting, heavy cloud/fog and twisty roads.

Video #4 - We are now driving on highway 702 to La Fortuna. Notice the narrow bridge - “ceda” means yield.

Video #5 - We are at the Arenal Manoa Resort Hotel, returning from a day trip we took the second day. Part of the road was being repaired.

Video #6 - Heading home on highway 4 and then highway 35 south.

Video #7 - Highway 118, through Sarchi and the outskirts of our town, Grecia.

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Lance outside on our casita’s patio.

The casitas are very private.

Kermit had never seen a jacuzzi before.

The clouds parted from around Arenal volcano just long enough for us to have a good view from our casita.

Breakfast was included - excellent.

 

The pool with swim up bar.

Pizza! made to order right by the pool. Thin crust - the best. Note that the cook and the server are wearing face masks.

Random photos from around the hotel grounds:

This was a great road trip, albeit with a few driving challenges - rain, cloud, fog and twisting roads. La Fortuna is a super place for tourists to visit - there is so much for them to do.

Click on images to enlarge.

Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - July 2021 / Covid-19 Update

 Important Note: As promised in my last blog post, the video we have been putting together about our road trip to Arenal volcano is almost ready! There was a lot of footage that had to be edited. In the meantime, here are the weather records/Covid-19 updates.

During July, visits to this blog were received from the following 15 countries and Hong Kong:

The total number of countries and non-independent jurisdictions from which visits have been received remains at 133. Of this number, 13 are non-independent jurisdictions.

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The following is a summary of weather for the month in the area where we live:

The total rainfall was less than that in July 2020 (13.77 in. / 350 mm) but substantially more than that in July 2019 (5.15 in. / 131 mm). High temperatures in July 2021 tended to be a bit higher than previous years - low temperatures tended to be a bit cooler. This may be because July was interrupted by a mini-summer ("verano") reminiscent of the dry season in Costa Rica (hotter days, cooler nights). Ten days in the middle of the month with absolutely no measured rain were bracketed by several days before and after with significant amounts of rain.

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Covid-19 Update

The following table updates the July 6 information which appeared in my blog entry posted on July 8, 2021:

Since my last post, the death rates in Costa Rica and the United States have dropped by marginal amounts (0.03 and 0.06 percentage points respectively). Those in Canada are unchanged. 

If you want to see how some other country is doing in comparison to those listed, then visit the website of Worldometer. Numbers for populations, reported cases and reported deaths can be obtained from that site. All that is then needed is some simple math to calculate the percentage death rate for the other country and the death rate in that country compared to Costa Rica.

If you want more comprehensive and up-to-date information and statistics on the situation in Costa Rica, including various locales in Costa Rica, then the La Nacion newspaper is a good source. If you do not understand Spanish, then you will need a web browser (Google Chrome, Safari, etc.) which is set to translate to your language of choice from Spanish.

Movie Trailer of Our Road Trip to Arenal

We’ve been working hard on putting together a video of our road trip to Arenal. There is a lot of video footage to edit.

In the meantime, here is a trailer that hopefully will keep your interest up.

https://vimeo.com/578925761

COMING SOON!!!!

 A blockbuster video of our Road Trip To Arenal Volcano!!!!

Featuring a cast of three: Kermit, Lance and Diana!

You will be Thrilled, Chilled and maybe bored by this astounding video!

So stand by while this undoubtedly award winning (somewhere in the world) video is edited. 

Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - June 2021 / Covid-19 Update

During June, visits to this blog were received from the following 5 countries and the Cayman Islands:

This compares with 14 countries in June 2019 and 21 countries in June 2020.

The total number of countries and non-independent jurisdictions from which visits have been received remains at 133. Of this number, 13 are non-independent jurisdictions.

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The following is a summary of weather for the month in the area where we live:

The total rainfall was less than that in June 2020 (12.56 in. / 319 mm) but more than that in June 2019 (5.52 in. / 140 mm). High and low temperatures were a bit cooler.

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Covid-19 Update

The following table updates the information which appeared in my blog entry posted on June 9:

The death rate in Costa Rica has dropped by a marginal amount (0.01 percentage points). Conversely, the death rates in the U.S. and Canada have risen by the same marginal amount. 

If you want to see how some other country is doing in comparison to those listed, then visit the website of Worldometer. Numbers for populations, reported cases and reported deaths can be obtained from that site. All that is then needed is some simple math to calculate the percentage death rate for the other country and the death rate in that country compared to Costa Rica.

If you want more comprehensive and up-to-date information and statistics on the situation in Costa Rica, including various locales in Costa Rica, then the La Nacion newspaper is a good source. If you do not understand Spanish, then you will need a web browser (Google Chrome, Safari, etc.) which is set to translate to your language of choice from Spanish.

(Click on images to enlarge).

Ants, Compre Bien and a Highway Restaurant

We recently experienced an invasion in our house and surrounding outdoor areas of very tiny, reddish/brown ants. They were everywhere. As fast as I swept them up, they returned. There were piles of dead ant bodies.

Outside our back door (those brown piles are dead ant bodies):

Inside, in every room:

Yes, it is the rainy season and, yes, we live in the tropics but in our ten years of living in Costa Rica, we have never had an insect invasion like this one. We live peacefully with the odd insect who comes in our home but this was not acceptable.

It was time to call in the big bug guns. Who ya gonna call? Delgado Fumigadora, of course. Our bug technician was bilingual. The outdoor areas were sprayed as well as indoors. A return visit will be needed to spray the outside again. We, and many others, highly recommend this company. Price was very reasonable.

We had a lucky week! Both Lance and myself received our new Costa Rican Dimex (or cedula) ID cards showing that our permanent residency had been successfully renewed for another three years.

And … I won 80,000 CRC in groceries at Compre Bien, a Costa Rican owned grocery store that we frequent here in Grecia. That is equivalent to about $160 Canadian dollars.

Today (Sunday) was one of our designated driving days. These driving restrictions are in force to hopefully keep people at home in an effort to control Covid-19. We decided to go out to a restaurant for breakfast.

Searching online, I found one in San Ramon that looked promising. We never found it - it was not where Waze indicated it should be. So we gave that up and decided to head towards home and maybe find a restaurant that was open along the way. By happenstance, we passed one that looked promising (it had trucks out front, a good sign) - Comidas Tipicas El Paraiso on Autopista Bernardo Soto (highway 1) - so we stopped here.

It was a good choice. The service is cafeteria style. All the selections were identified and prices posted so you just have to point if you feel your Spanish is a bit shaky. I prefer this style of eating for breakfast and lunch as I can control the portion sizes and just get the items that I want. For me this morning it was a tamale, an egg cannelloni and a tamarind drink. The cannelloni is stuffed with meat and then wrapped in an omelette - I had never seen cannelloni prepared this way until we moved here. Lance ordered pinto (rice and beans), eggs, coffee and a sort of potato salad. Everything was excellent.

You will never guess what the final cost was for all these delicious items ….. 5,200 colones!!! That’s like $10 Canadian - for two people! This restaurant is very popular with locals.

Then, just to sweeten the pot, a special car drove up and parked. It just looked expensive … it had gull wing doors that swung open. We had to check it out when we left - it was a Tesla 10X! Except on TV, we had never seen one of those before. The starting price for this vehicle is about $91,000 in the USA, according to Car and Driver Magazine. I wonder how it came to be here and who owns it. 

I took a photo - the green-blue coloured licence plate indicates it is an electric vehicle. The people who got out of it and entered the restaurant looked just like everyone else - ordinary folk. Maybe this is a testament to this restaurant.

Click on images to enlarge.