The country is desperately fighting Covid-19. The situation is devastating and hardly any other region in the world is suffering from the pandemic like South America.
Posted today at 6:47 pm—
Winter is approaching in Argentina, temperatures are falling and new corona infections are reaching record levels.
Photo: Natacha Pisarenko (Keystone / AP)
When Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández addressed his compatriots in a televised address on Thursday evening, the news was bad, but many Argentines were somehow relieved. From this Saturday on, large parts of the country will return to strict lockdown, initially for nine days, but no one in Argentina really believes that it will just stay that way.
The capital Buenos Aires is now cordoned off, and citizens are only allowed to move within the immediate vicinity of their place of residence. Schools, restaurants, cafés, fitness studios: everything is closed. The measures are tougher than expected, but at the same time the guesswork that has been going on for days about what could happen is finally over. Because there was no longer any doubt that something had to happen.
With around 45 million inhabitants, there were an average of almost 30,000 new infections per day in Argentina last week, plus 500 deaths. The infection curve rises more and more steeply, and the beds in hospitals are becoming increasingly scarce. “We are currently living through the worst moment of the pandemic,” said head of state Alberto Fernández on Thursday with a view to his country. But he might as well have spoken of the entire continent.
Nowhere in the world are the infection and death rates currently as devastating as in South America. Although only slightly more than five percent of the world’s population live here, more than 20 percent of the Covid deaths worldwide come from South America.
Bolsonaro blocks strict measures
For a long time, the situation was particularly dramatic in Brazil. The country is the most populous in the region, and the government of President Jair Bolsonaro is still blocking all strict nationwide measures to contain the pandemic. In the meantime, however, the virus is out of control even in Uruguay, although the country was still considered a showcase nation in the fight against Covid-19 last year.
The fact that the pathogen is spreading in South America is partly due to more contagious variants. In addition, there are also climatic factors: Winter is approaching in the southern hemisphere, temperatures are falling, windows remain closed, friends and families prefer to meet at home in the living room rather than in parks.
This seems to be one of the main problems: After some hard lockdowns that lasted for months last year, many people are no longer willing to follow strict measures to combat pandemic again. In addition, many can no longer afford this anyway.
Even before Covid-19, the economic situation was very tense. The pandemic has now plunged South America into one of the worst crises in its history. In many countries, half or even the majority of the population does not have a permanent contract. Some work as beach vendors, others as cleaning help or black on the construction site. If they don’t show up for work, their plates stay empty in the evening.
Hunger is widespread
Hardly any state still has the money to adequately support shopkeepers or the poor. In Argentina alone, almost half of the population now lives below the poverty line. Hunger is growing, the queues in front of the soup kitchens are getting longer and longer.
The only way out, it seems, is vaccination. Sometimes these are administered quickly and over a large area. In Chile, for example, almost half of the population is already immunized with at least one dose, in Uruguay well over a third. Nevertheless, both countries continue to struggle with high numbers of infections.
In the vast majority of countries, however, the speed of vaccination campaigns is much slower. Vaccines arrived comparatively late in the region, too little political influence, too little financial resources, too negative some governments. In Brazil, some cities had to suspend vaccination campaigns again and again because there was a lack of supplies. The same thing happened in some regions of Paraguay this week. Only 250,000 people have been vaccinated there.
It is hopeful that some countries have meanwhile started to manufacture vaccines themselves. Chinese vaccines are manufactured in Brazil, and a laboratory is working on the production of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V. This is also to be manufactured in Argentina in the future. The country is already producing the active ingredient from Astra Zeneca, which will then be refilled for filling Mexico must be sent. Completion was stalled there for a long time, now several million cans are to be delivered to Argentina in the next few weeks. The country, that much is certain, urgently needs them.
Posted today at 6:47 pm
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