Buenos Aires’ Worrisome, Seemingly Endless, Quarantine

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Buenos Aires has been in quarantine for over three months. Now, until July 17th, it will be under an even more strict confinement. No one expects a significant relaxation at least until September. It will be six months, at best.

As a result of such discipline, the death toll from coronavirus (1,167 by Friday) is among the lowest in Latin America. However, everything else is in a critical situation: the economy is collapsing, many people are suffering from depression and anxiety, and tens of thousands of businesses are closing their doors for good. Entrepreneurs and psychologists say that the lack of prospects is causing very serious damages.

In Argentina, the pandemic is mainly affecting the city of Buenos Aires and its massive metropolitan area. There, where half of economic production is centered, so is the vast majority of infections. The health situation is approaching its critical point. Faced with the risk of hospitals collapsing in August, President Alberto Fernández called for “a final effort” and acknowledged that the quarantine, which was started virtually at the same time as in Spain and France, is exhausting.

Psychiatrist Elsa Wolfberg believes that “emotional exhaustion” from forced confinement is substantially compounded by economic uncertainty. As long as the emergency lasts, dismissals are banned. Then they will come en masse.

“Until recently, I was impressed by the collective cooperation in the fulfillment of quarantine,” Wolfberg says, “but not anymore, because we are witnessing how the country is collapsing, we are witnessing a kind of national suicide, and people are less afraid of the disease because mortality is low, now they are more afraid of the consequences of the shutdown”.

One of the concerns of the federal president, the governor of Buenos Aires province, and the head of the city government, is the risk of social uprising. Discipline is dropping. According to a survey by the University of Buenos Aires, 27 out of every 100 Argentinians say they can no longer bear one more day in quarantine. Although support for confinement is still predominant, a little over 50 percent, those who have stopped earning salaries and are watching their businesses go bankrupt show widespread symptoms of depression and anxiety.

“It’s very difficult to tolerate this much uncertainty,” says psychiatrist Elsa Wolfberg. In a country addicted to psychoanalysis, the number of phone and video appointments has been increasing only since March 20th, when confinement began.

All macroeconomic indicators are in the red. Argentina is negotiating with its creditors, but is not yet able to escape the suspension of payments (“default”) on its sovereign debt. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that production will drop by 9.9 percent in 2020, which will add to a recession that now spans three years.

Unemployment affects 2.1 million people. Inflation remains above 45 percent per year. New currency depreciations are expected. President Alberto Fernández said on Thursday that “in a short time, the economy will fully operate again.” How long? No one knows.

“This is the main problem, the lack of prospects, the unknown, as to how long this will last,” says Carlos Gutiérrez, born in León (Spain), who began working at La Biela in 1966 as a teenager and now runs the business. La Biela, founded in the mid-19th century under the name of La Veredita across from La Recoleta cemetery, is one of the most famous cafes in Buenos Aires. Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares had a permanent table there.

The emptiness of a 400-seat venue that used to be crowded causes a certain degree of anguish. “We had 54 employees and because we own the place I think we can survive,” Gutiérrez says, “but we need them to give us some hope, some expectation”.

The manager of La Biela stresses that catering businesses are very expensive to sustain. “For many, it makes no sense to keep paying wages and rents and going into debt with no idea what the limit is,” he says. He estimates that in Buenos Aires 25 percent of cafes and restaurants, around 2,000 establishments, will close for good.

The rumor spread for a few days that one of the confinement victims would be the mythical Guerrin pizzeria on Corrientes Avenue; however, its owners, a large group of restaurants, said it will open again as soon as possible. The commercial areas of Buenos Aires, around Corrientes and Florida Street, are the hardest hit by the quarantine and lack of tourists.

Palermo Soho and Puerto Madero, the regions where nightlife was at its peak, have turned into deserts and are witnessing a continuous stream of permanent shutdowns. The capital’s urban landscape will emerge from quarantine, whenever it does, much grayer.

The country’s children are among the most affected by the situation. Many of them fear going out to the streets, where people are walking with their faces covered with masks. “That will leave them with sequelae, but I don’t know which ones. Some people talk about traumas. I’d rather not go that far for now,” says psychologist Sebastián Sequeira, specializing in childhood.

“For the younger generation, consistency is very important, and now everything is inconsistent, quarantine no longer seems temporary,” he says. “Adolescents can virtually communicate with their friends, but that’s not good for underage children, they need physical contact, games, disputes,” Sequeira adds.

“Parents, however unwilling, convey anxiety, and all family issues escalate,” according to the psychologist. Social and economic circumstances obviously influence them. But isolation has aggravated cases of domestic violence (on average, an Argentinian woman dies murdered by her partner every 33 hours), and a study by the University of Buenos Aires shows an increase in cases of alcoholism, smoking and self-medication.

“This measure to protect public health is undermining mental health,” says Sequeira, in reference to quarantine.

Source: El País