Argentina Passes 1 Million Covid-19 Cases

By Staff, Agencies

Argentina passed 1 million Coronavirus cases Monday, with its smaller cities like Ushuaia seeing some of the most notable upticks.

The country’s doctors have had to quadruple the number of beds for COVID-19 patients over the last month. At least 60 percent of those tested recently are coming back positive for the virus.

"We were the example of the country," said Dr. Carlos Guglielmi, director of the Ushuaia Regional Hospital. "Evidently someone arrived with the coronavirus."

Across Latin America, three other nations are expected to reach the 1 million case milestone in the coming weeks - Colombia, Mexico and Peru. The grim mark comes as Latin America continues to register some of the world’s highest daily case counts. And though some nations have seen important declines, overall there has been little relief, with cases dropping in one municipality only to escalate in another.

The trajectory is showing that the pandemic is likely to leave no corner of Latin America unscathed.

Argentina has seen cases spiral despite instituting one of the world’s longest lockdowns. Colombia’s major cities have seen a dip, but smaller areas like the department of Caldas in the coffee region are only now reaching a peak. Peru’s overall numbers have dropped, but officials recently reported 12 regions are spiking back up. Mexico, likewise, has seen a rise in a quarter of all states over the last week.

The result is that rather than a second virus wave like that being seen in Europe, epidemiologists anticipate a more sustained, plateau-like trend.

"Our countries are still getting out of the first wave," said Dr. Marcos Espinal, director of the Pan American Health Organization’s Department of Communicable Diseases. "A great part of the population remains exposed and community transmission continues."

Argentina initially registered low virus case numbers but now has one of the highest rates of new daily infections per capita, according to Our World in Data, a non-profit online scientific publication based at the University of Oxford. It is on par with several European countries that are experiencing a resurgence of the virus.