Uruguay records over 1,000 coronavirus cases in five consecutive days; government considers new measures

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Limitation to the right of assembly, reduction of opening hours in public establishments and suspension of classes are among the measures that Luis Lacalle Pou’s government will analyze this Tuesday, March 16th, in a cabinet meeting to try to reduce the number of Covid-19 cases in Uruguay.

The South American country is experiencing a resurgence of the first wave, recording over 1,000 daily infections for five consecutive days (including a record of 1,587 on Sunday, March 14th) and a progressive increase in active and intensive care cases, reason for which the president summoned his cabinet this Tuesday, on the same day as the arrival of a second flight from China with Sinovac vaccines.

According to the Presidency, Lacalle Pou summoned his ministers to the Executive Tower at 4 PM (19:00 GMT), just after the plane from Beijing lands at Carrasco International Airport, in the outskirts of Montevideo, with over 1.5 million CoronaVac doses, which will complete the 1,750,000 doses purchased from the Chinese laboratory.

With 212,900 people now immunized (6.07% of the Uruguayan population) with either the CoronaVac or Pfizer vaccine, the two immunizers that have been delivered to the South American country so far, Lacalle Pou’s government continues to rely on responsible freedom rather than on confinements replicated all over the world.

Despite the positive figures recorded by Uruguay during the first nine months of the pandemic, the first wave came in December – with a plateau during January and February, summer vacation in the southern hemisphere – and a resurgence is now being observed, with 10,536 active cases (11.52 positivity in tests performed) and 131 in intensive care, according to experts.

Therefore, the Executive is again considering the reduction of opening hours in bars and restaurants – extended to 2 AM (05:00 GMT) in January, except in the departments (provinces) that chose to maintain it at midnight -, the suspension of classes and the extension of the limitation to the right of assembly, currently in force and which should be again debated in Parliament for renewal.

In addition, Easter Week is coming soon, when Uruguayans tend to leave their usual residence and move mostly to the beaches in the east of the country, which is causing greater concern to authorities.

Since March 13th, 2020, when the health emergency was declared in Uruguay due to the detection of the first four positive cases, 72,862 people have had the disease and 717 have died.

The situation on the border with Brazil

Intensive Care Unit occupancy in the department (province) of Rivera, located in the north of the country and bordering Brazil, is “reaching levels that can be defined as saturated” so work must be started on a “regional complementation” plan.

This was stated on Monday by Julio Pontet, president of the Uruguayan Society of Intensive Care Medicine (SUMI), who explained that there are 23 beds there, between public and private centers.

Therefore, he stressed the significance of “optimizing the regional complementation plans” so that patients may be referred by ambulance to other departments located further south.

In this respect, the president of the State Health Services Administration (ASSE), Leonardo Cipriani, said at a press conference in Montevideo that the Tacuarembó hospital (center-north) has been reinforced “with a new ITC (Intensive Treatment Center),” and therefore has 12 beds available in intensive care.

“We have provided specialized transport with the capacity to transfer Covid-19 patients. We added two new ambulances, with ventilators, monitors, Covid capsules…. If the situation does not change, we will immediately transfer them,” explained the head of ASSE.

He also mentioned the Paysandú hospital (northwest), which can help the departments of Salto and Artigas, both red on the Harvard scale.

On the other hand, Pontet pointed out that Uruguay is experiencing “the worst moment” of the pandemic and emphasized that SUMI has drawn up a contingency plan along with the Ministry of Public Health which addresses the potential for a saturation plan.

Source: infobae