New York Times warns of new global coronavirus peak, identifies Uruguay and Argentina as most worrying cases

The past seven days have turned dramatic for the spread of COVID-19 and New York Tiems Alert on the emergency with an eloquent map: in brown, almost black, the most infected countries per 100,000 inhabitants per week.

The newspaper warns that the daily average of new cases worldwide has remained above 800,000 in the past seven days and As the world turns to India, South America has the highest infection rate.

The country with the worst numbers is Uruguay, which currently has the highest number of cases per capita in the world, adds nearly 3,000 cases a day, a staggering number in a country of just 3.5 million people. The map shows that last week Uruguay recorded an average of 84 infections per 100,000 population.

Argentina follows with a daily average of 22,763 new cases, or a weekly average of 51 infections per 100,000 inhabitants.

Besides the crisis in Uruguay and Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru and Colombia are among the top 20 countries in the world in terms of deaths from Covid per capita.

Several factors have combined to fuel the epidemic in South America. In Brazil, the continent’s largest country, President Jair Bolsonaro’s dismissive attitude towards the threat posed by the virus has led to a month-long crisis that has spread to neighboring countries. And early research has indicated that the P.1 variant, first identified in the Brazilian city of Manaus at the end of last year, may be more transmissible and deadly than previous forms of the virus.

Colombia’s second-largest city, Medellín, is also among the places where serious epidemics are occurring. Authorities were able to control the virus to a large extent last year. But a second and third wave, in January and April, devastated the city. Although authorities added 1,000 new intensive care units to the region in 2020, this preparation has not been sufficient.

The cover story He also warns of the situation in other countries of the world which, if their rate of contagion per 100,000 inhabitants is lower than that of Uruguay and Argentina, they also have alarming rates: Sweden and Turkey, with 49 infections per 100,000 inhabitants each.

IndiaToday, the country with the most media attention for the tragic images of the health collapse is also on the map, with a rate of 26 infections per 100,000 population in the past seven days. While this doesn’t show up on the map as one of the most worrying cases, the NYT explains that India is also the driving force behind this new world summit. He details that there, the seven-day moving average of daily new cases in the country surpassed 357,000 last Thursday, which is an increase of more than five times since April 1. And it reveals that the country now accounts for more than 40% of new cases worldwide. Most worrying, the article warns, is that These grim figures can be understated.

The second wave of the virus was devastating. In hospitals in the capital New Delhi, the shortage of medical oxygen has reached crisis levels, and cremation grounds operate non-stop as family and friends continue to bring in more bodies to burn. After promulgating one of the tightest shutdowns in the world last March, which kept the death toll relatively low, Indian authorities relaxed restrictions. Some politicians have even staged massive rallies in recent weeks as the country’s infection rate skyrocketed. The increase has left hospitals overwhelmed.

“People are angry because they are not getting respirators or oxygen,” said Dr Rakesh Kumar, a doctor in the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India. “They say, ‘We pay for the facilities; So why are our patients dying? Healthcare professionals in India are facing an overwhelming situation. “No hospital has closed and no doctor has withdrawn from the front lines,” one doctor wrote in a Facebook post. “We are fighting missiles with sticks, but we are not leaving the fort.”

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