Coronavirus is slipping: how Argentina is today compared to the countries with which Alberto Fernández has compared himself

With the 251 deaths reported in Thursday’s daily portion, Argentina overtook Chile in number of coronavirus deaths per million population. Thus, it was among the three countries with the highest rates in Latin America, behind Peru (1,058 deaths per million) and Brazil (774). As of Friday, there have been 264 deaths, to which the country adds a total of 35,045 deaths from the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.

In this way, Argentina now has 773 deaths per million inhabitants and It is the 7th country with the most deaths according to this indicator, immediately behind the aforementioned Brazil. Chile has 769 deaths from Covid-19 per million inhabitants, according to details from the Worldometer website.

In recent weeks, our country has recorded an increase in this parameter. After passing Sweden (October 18) and Italy (October 22), on Monday November 2, Argentina traveled to the United Kingdom, two days later it left Mexico and Ecuador behind, and last Friday she reached a number of deaths due to Covid-19 per million inhabitants higher than that of the United States., one of the countries most questioned for its strategy against the pandemic.

On several occasions since the quarantine began on March 19, President Alberto Fernández has resorted to slides or graphics to show the country’s reality in the face of the pandemic compared to other countries. A detail: on several occasions, the states mentioned had to go out to rectify as the Argentine president said, as happened with Chile – precisely the country Argentina just moved in the rankings – on May 24.

“I need to correct an error in the information published by @CasaRosada in a recent press briefing. The death rate in Chile is 3.5 x 100,000 inhabitants and not 98.5 as shown in the following graph, ”Nicolás Monckeberg Díaz, Ambassador of Chile to Argentina, wrote on Twitter.

This tweet was followed by a discussion thread in which Monckeberg Díaz remarked: “As is evident, the number of infected confirmed by each country is directly related to the number of tests applied. Chile, to date, does more of 17,500 per MM of inhabitants, being the country with the highest diagnosis rate in the region “. And he closed by saying: “In honor of the cleanliness, it is necessary to clarify the data recently given in the national channel.”

Two weeks before the diplomatic ban with Chile on May 11, Sweden had already responded to Fernández when the president spoke of how the Scandinavian country had coped with the pandemic. “When they tell me to follow the Swedish example, The truth is what I see is that Sweden, with 10 million inhabitants, today has more than 3000 deaths from the virus.. If we had followed this example, we would have died today 13,000. If we open up the economy, we will end up like Sweden did, ”he said.

The Swedish embassy in the country took the gauntlet and replied: “It is difficult to make direct comparisons between the containment measures adopted by different countries. Sweden has higher death rates from Covid-19 than some other countries that have imposed quarantine, and lower than others that have also imposed quarantine. inhabitant, Sweden ranks far, in 18th place, with 609 deaths (6,164 deaths in total).

At the end of May, a month with many diplomatic short films, the president again made a mistake that posed a public challenge that was rumbling in the area. At that time, Brazil had more than 360,000 cases from the pandemic and deaths stood at 22,666. It was already the second worst affected country in the world.

Pero Itamaraty did not let the argentinian film pass. “During the presentation of # Covid_19 in #Argentina, @CasaRosada reported that the death rate in #Brasil would be 94.3 / 100,000 inhabitants,” began the tweet from the Brazilian Embassy in Argentina, led by Sergio Danese. “The real rate is 10.5 / 100,000 inhabitants, as we can see on the website of the @minsaude of Brazil: https://covid.saude.gov.br, “corrected the government of this country. Today, Brazil has 40,769,774 per million inhabitants.

On July 17, in a new announcement of compulsory, preventive and social isolation, Fernández stressed that “(so far) the effort has not been wasted” and argued that “no matter how much the isolation does wrong, that’s what it allows us “. not to fall into a “crisis like that of the Basque Country, where you had to choose who lived and who died ”, because the health system was full.

The reference to this region of Spain was surprising. What was the reason? It was not the first time that the Argentine president spoke of the Basque Country. He heard this case from one of the infectious disease specialists who advises him on the expert committee. And as it happened, the answer came and controversy ensued.

A day later, on July 18, the government of the Basque Country rejected the president’s statements and demanded a “public and immediate rectification” from the president. The president of the Basque government, Iñigo Urkullu Renteria, addressed an official protest to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the delegation in Buenos Aires to indicate “the falsity of such an assertion”.

And even the Federation of Argentinian Basque Entities (FEBA) has taken action in this area: “We find it hard to understand why this mention was made This is unfair, painful and unfortunately harms our second homeland. “Spain, which is one of the European countries that suffers the most from the second wave – epidemic – is fifth, with 865 deaths per million inhabitants (or 40,461).

The most unusual thing was that even the governor of Mendoza, Rodolfo Suárez, had to go to Alberto Fernández crossing on August 1, over the controversial film. “It is important to note that we are making decisions based on Mendoza data, and no to the inaccurate evaluations that the president presented on our provincePresident de Cuyo tweeted after the last presidential announcement on July 31 when he underlined “the growth in the number of infections in Mendoza when it went from isolation to social distancing.”

Months have passed, Argentina has maintained the longest quarantine in the world and the scene has turned 180 degrees. The contagion curve has accelerated, increased in intensity across the country and the number of deaths has also increased. With more than 1.2 million infected and more than 34,000 dead, Today Argentina is close to those countries – some have already passed them – which seemed light years away. Just as infectologists have ceased to appear at press conferences, the slides are also gone. It was not necessary to continue to compare yourself with other countries.

AS

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