RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, the largest in the country, greets this first weekend of 2021 with strong restrictions on the movement of people and vehicles, in addition to the suspension of all activity, in order to stop the outbreak of covid-19.
The streets of Santa Cruz woke up mostly empty and only the presence of some vehicles and the occasional cyclist were noticed, in compliance with the traffic ban that governs this Saturday and Sunday, January 2nd and 3rd.
The measure was ordered by the municipal government of Santa Cruz, whose highest representative, the interim mayor Angélica Sosa, opened the day with an event in which the deputy commander of the Santa Cruz Departmental Police, Marcelo Flores, and the commander of the Eighth Army Division, Igor Serrudo, also participated.
“Today we ask for this two-day sacrifice, it is a restriction to stay at home, to wait for our medical brigades,” Sosa explained. This Saturday and Sunday 7,000 people will be deployed, including doctors and municipal officials, who will make home visits in this city of about a million and a half inhabitants.
The medical brigades do a “sweep” to detect new cases and deliver medical kits to infected people. They also preventively administer liquid doses of Ivermectin, an antiparasitic authorized in the country to lower the viral load, as explained by municipal officials.
Some 600 soldiers and 400 police officers ensure that only authorized vehicles circulate, while the municipality also carries out disinfection actions in regularly crowded places, such as popular markets.
THE SITUATION
The region of Santa Cruz, whose capital has the same name, is the worst hit by the pandemic in Bolivia, with a total of 4,492 deaths and 52,994 infections since the first cases were registered in the country last March.
Regional authorities warned last month that there is a “tangible” and “forceful” outbreak of the disease in the department, with a continuous increase in new cases.
At the beginning of December, the national government of Luis Arce lifted the restrictions for massive events that had been in force since last March, in order to “reactivate” the country’s economy, a measure that will take effect after January 15.
After about three months with low numbers of infections, Bolivia has once again reported more than a thousand cases a day recently, which raised alarms in the main regions and cities that began to apply some containment measures.
The national government signed a contract for the acquisition of 5.2 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine, the first delivery of which is expected in March.
It will also apply massive tests to detect the disease early and has decided to restrict the entry of passengers from Europe until January 8 to avoid a further outbreak and the entry of the new variant of covid-19 identified in the United Kingdom.
Bolivia has accumulated 9,175 deaths and 160,985 infections of the covid-19 since last March.