On the border with Brazil, a city in Uruguay is besieged by the coronavirus

A land that knows no borders, where the imaginary line that separates two nations hardly exists and where the inhabitants seem indifferent to the pandemic that is hitting the world. It’s like that Rivera, the city of Uruguay most affected by the coronavirus and whose public hospital is saturated.

The figures reveal the fragility of this corner of the northern border of Uruguay with Brazil and Covid-19 takes advantage of this Achilles heel to enter with its destructive potential and invade with the new Brazilian variant P-1 several departments (provinces) of the small neighboring country.

The result: chaotic. The intensive care center at Rivera public hospital is 100% occupied; doctors looking into a situation that is close to collapsing; and a city that still seems oblivious to the lethality of Covid-19, despite the fact that 61 of the 100,000 inhabitants of the department have died from it.

Porous border

Life in Rivera is not easy. This city is located on the dry border with Brazil and its inhabitants share a binational routine with those of neighboring Santana do Livramento: many live on one side and work on the other.

Separation is non-existent. When you are walking the streets or traveling by car, you change countries from one second to the next without hindrance, because it there is no customs, migration or control post with these settlers who feel at the same time Brazilian and Uruguayan and even speak the singular “Portuñol”.

From the start, experts and authorities sensed Rivera was going to be his weak point. There, measures such as the suspension of classes or the closure of duty-free shops, which thousands of Brazilians frequent every day, until April 12, are in effect.

As well the military presence on the roads has been reinforced ask someone for the document who is about to enter or leave Rivera, although in the streets of the city it is strange to meet a Brazilian or Uruguayan policeman.

The tranquility of the settlers – a few with masks and other protective measures – is not reflected in the numbers.

Currently, Uruguay has 108,188 positives (21,979 active), 360 in STIs and 1,009 deaths. The Harvard Index says that while the country has 66.3 new cases in the past seven days per 100,000 population, Rivera is moving to 145.27 and is the department that has been in the red zone the longest.

Few intensive therapy beds

The Rivera Departmental Hospital lives days of stress, fear and frustration Faced with the imminent possibility of not being able to respond to patients, its director, Florencia Eula, explains to EFE.

Doctors and nurses go out of their way to take care of patients with covid. After leaving the rooms and after careful and thorough disinfection, the protective suits fall off and finally reveal the human being behind.

Eula underlines that the center is currently “in a very worrying situation”, due the exponential increase in cases the last few weeks.

The hospital he runs serves 65,000 users. However, it has 127 beds and only 7 of them for CTI, all busy these days.

The advantage, he says, is that there is always the possibility of transferring patients to other hospitals that are part of the State Health Services Administration (ASSE), although there is know that the danger of not being able to do it in a short period of time is latent.

“We are working every day to try to prevent it from happening, but it is on the table and can happen anytime. Today we have beds available elsewhere to provide care that matches critical patients, but if those numbers don’t drop somewhere for now, they’ll be completely full and we won’t be able to transfer patients, ”he points out. -he.

For Eula, if this situation is not stopped, the tragic moment will come when the doctors will have to decide who lives.

Bet on vaccines

The positive is that the authorities made the arrival of vaccines a priority to these lands. Rivera is the department with the highest percentage of people vaccinated: almost 33% of its population received the first dose and 2.05% the second.

The problem is serious, the permeability of the border worsens it, the Uruguayan measures are not reflected in the Brazilian measures and the population seems alienated and plunged into a bubble of apparent immunity which is not appreciated in the beds where many patients are fighting for their lives. .

However, confidence in vaccines and the hope that behaviors will change once and for all mean that this deadly cocktail can still be quenched and binational life can once again be as it is called: “The Frontier of Peace.” .

By Federico Anfitti, EFE agency

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