RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Argentina stands out for the wrong reasons in its six-month fight to control the coronavirus pandemic.
While some relief is finally seen in countries like Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, which have been severely affected by the respiratory disease, Argentina is registering an increase in the curve throughout the country. Cases are spreading to inland provinces with no resources, and the country has experienced daily death records several times this week.
The second largest country in South America has the highest number of deaths per million inhabitants on a seven-day basis in the global ranking. It also registers the highest number of cases globally using the same metric and period, behind only Israel, Montenegro, Bahrain and Spain, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Before this week, Argentina had not recorded a single day with over 400 deaths in the preceding 24 hours. But each day this week the tally exceeded that figure, with a record 470 people killed by Covid-19 on Tuesday. Some of the deaths occurred a month ago and are now being entered into the system, according to Federico Tiberti, a doctoral candidate at Princeton University who has analyzed the data.
The Ministry of Health has not commented on the rise in cases. In the global ranking, Argentina is placed 10th in terms of number of infections, with 664,799 cases, and 14th in deaths, with 14,376.
“Argentina is experiencing a very difficult situation,” said Marcos Espinal, director of the Transmissible Diseases and Health Analysis Department of the Pan American Health Organization, in a webcast on September 23rd. “And we can’t say they’ve reached the peak.”
Government officials say mortality rates in poorer, sparsely populated provinces have already exceeded those in the city of Buenos Aires, where the virus hit in March.
Low income
Two of the country’s famous wine regions, Mendoza and Salta, have 81 percent occupancy of ICU beds, well above the national average of 60 percent. In some hospitals in the province of Santa Fe, an important export center, the ICU bed occupancy is now at 90 percent, according to the newspaper La Nación.
Mendoza and Rosario (the largest city in Santa Fe) are expected to register a rapid increase in cases for at least another week, according to Federico Collado, research director of the Urbeos data analysis company, which examines transit data by socioeconomic demography.
“The most serious problem in the coming months will be focused on the population living in low-income suburban neighborhoods,” said Collado. “If we fail to understand this point in our cities, we will continue to see cases grow and, most importantly, we will run the risk of new outbreaks like the one we are witnessing in Europe.”
Source: Bloomberg