RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Argentina has already recorded more than 68,000 deaths due to Covid-19 at a time when, despite the progress made in vaccination, there is still no light at the end of the tunnel due to the high number of daily infections and the extreme situation of the hospital system.
A total of 25,976 people have tested positive in just one day, according to the latest report from the Ministry of Health, mainly in the province of Buenos Aires (11,212 cases) and the capital (2,618), closely followed by Córdoba (2,546) and Santa Fe (2,192).
So far in the pandemic, Argentina has registered 3.19 million infected persons, of whom 268,422 are still suffering from the disease in the current second wave, which left a historic record number of positives on April 16: 29,472 cases.
They have lost 68,311 lives, including 490 on the last day.
“The funeral service companies had a very significant increase in the last year and a half,” Roberto Parella, of the Latin American Group of Funeral Services, tells Efe, who reports, according to his experience, that the number of deaths increased between 50 % and 60 % in that period.
FOUR MILLION MORE VACCINATIONS
With intensive care beds at 75.7% of their capacity in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires -the most affected population center-, the news that 4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will arrive this month has opened a window of hope.
This Tuesday, the Government of Alberto Fernandez announced that the first batch (3,960,000 doses) corresponding to the contract signed with the British laboratory in 2020 to receive 22.4 million produced in Argentina and finished in Mexico would arrive in May.
Also, this month, another 861,600 doses will be received from AstraZeneca/Oxford University through the United Nations Covax mechanism.
“Undoubtedly, this is the beginning of a new stage after all the effort made by the national government through different efforts to obtain the vaccines”, said the Minister of Health, Carla Vizzotti, who added that, if the schedule presented by the company is fulfilled, the course of the second wave in Argentina will be “changed”.
To face it, the Government maintains restrictions in risk areas such as the prohibition to circulate at night or the cancellation of classes. However, the latter is not complied within the capital city due to the refusal of its mayor, the opposition Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, whose position was endorsed by the Supreme Court.
Likewise, in the midst of the political dispute, Fernandez sent on Monday to Congress a bill that allows the national and provincial executives to adopt measures against the pandemic and prevent them from being challenged in the Courts.
17% OF THE POPULATION VACCINATED WITH THE FIRST DOSE
In Argentina, with 45.8 million inhabitants, 7.86 million have already been inoculated with the first dose (17.17 % of the population), and 1,517,012 have already received the second dose (3.31 %): mainly people aged 60 and over and health personnel.
The campaign is being carried out mainly with the Russian Sputnik-V. Still, the Chinese Sinopharm, the Covishield produced in India with AstraZeneca technology, and the doses of the latter pharmaceutical company, which have already arrived thanks to Covax.
The vaccination campaign is precisely one of the main points of political discord. While the Government defends its management, the opposition Juntos por el Cambio accuses it of inefficiency and slowness. There are already cases of citizens who choose to travel to the United States to get vaccinated.
The controversy worsened when last Sunday former President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) announced that he was vaccinated in that country, where he traveled to participate in a forum.
“Being in the U.S. I was able to verify that vaccines are applied anywhere (…). I myself have been able to apply Johnson’s single-dose vaccine in a pharmacy. Let’s remember that Argentina could have had at its disposal millions of vaccines that it did not know how to negotiate”, wrote the former president on Facebook.
In February, after it became known that personnages close to the Government had been vaccinated with privileges, Macri had said that he would not be vaccinated “until the last of the Argentines at risk and essential workers” had received it.
“While Argentines take risks fighting the pandemic, others take advantage of their privileges in Miami”, criticized yesterday the head of the Cabinet of Ministers, Santiago Cafiero.
In defense of Macri, the president of his party, Patricia Bullrich, pointed out that the former president “had the opportunity to get vaccinated, but without taking the vaccine from any Argentinean”, in a clear allusion to the scandal that affected the Government.