COVID-19 breaks out in Argentina, but nothing stops vacationers

During the summer holidays, Argentina is listed as the Latin American country with the highest number of new COVID-19 infections. But without a higher incidence of mortality, the beaches have been filled with tourists eager to leave the bad times of the quarantine behind.

Mar del Plata, a traditional summer destination on the Atlantic coast, is experiencing a frenzied season these days, with crowds on the beaches, nightclubs and also in line to get swabs.

“People want to get out after two years of pandemic. It’s like revenge. People are letting go. The covid is reaching its final stage, and people have to enjoy themselves, they have to live ”, throws the AFP to the seashore Andrés Gazzola, a 25-year-old medical student.

Argentina in 2020 it had one of the longest confinements in the world. In 2021 he timidly opened schools, although not universities, and reactivated some economic sectors. Just last November it opened its borders.

Now, on the beach crowded with umbrellas, there are both families struggling to stay in the bubble and groups of young people who proclaim the end of the covid. “The pandemic is over,” laughs Lara Serra. “This is full of people. It’s everything teenagers want, ”enthuses her friend Renata Pendino.

Nightclubs, restaurants and hotels are struggling to recover from the bad times in which they were closed for many months. Days in which the city was so lonely that the sea lions strolled through the squares.

“The boliches (nightclubs) explode. There is a beautiful, festive climate, beyond the pandemic that was lived. There is an energy to have a good time ”, sums up Emiliano Guzmán, a young man who came from the city of San Juan.

Case record

But a few meters from the beach, the line to swab increases. The percentage of tests that are positive in Mar del Plata grows day by day and exceeds 62%, according to health authorities, more than the national average of 50% and well above the 10% recommended by the World Health Organization.

Patricia Bogdanowicz, infectologist and pediatrician at the Hospital de Clínicas in Buenos Aires, warns about the relaxation of care, especially among vaccinated young people.

“What they do not take into account is that the large number of cases of covid-19 has put the productive apparatus in suspense, complete health services that do not work due to the number of isolated doctors, paramedics and nurses”he told AFP.

With 45 million inhabitants, Argentina accumulates more than 6.6 million cases of COVID-19, of which 1.1 million were registered since January 1, and has exceeded 117,600 deaths. Every day breaks records of infections. On Wednesday there were 131,082 with 75 deaths. The occupancy of intensive care beds is around 40%.

Last June, when the record had been 42,000 cases in one day, there were between 500 and 600 deaths a day for several weeks.

Almost 75% of the population has two doses of the vaccine and of these 18% have received a third booster.

“It is difficult to control the Argentine population, it is very difficult to tell them to comply with restrictive measures. The climate is highly politicized in the face of the pandemic and if one tries measures it is possible that demonstrations against it will be generated, which in turn are situations of greater contagion “infectious disease doctor Luis Cámera, an advisor to President Alberto Fernández, told AFP.

Recover the economy

The holiday season was promoted very intensely by the government, which is trying to reactivate the economy after a 9.9% drop in 2020 and a 10% rebound in 2021.

For this season, it launched the pre-screening program, a financial incentive for consumption in tourist places in Argentina. 4.5 million people joined that plan.

And although the infections are multiplying, the government not only refuses to impose new sanitary restrictions but has also relaxed the isolation rules to avoid paralysis.

“Instead of (the occupation of) intensive care beds we are concerned about absenteeism from work”, Declared recently the Minister of Health, Carla Vizzotti.

The Industrial Union Argentina This week he asked the government to take measures to stop the increase, which reaches 7.5% of the personnel, of workers who do not go to work because they have been in close contact with a positive case.

Also among health personnel, a greater lack of workers has been reported due to isolations due to COVID-19.

Source: AFP

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