A group of Uruguayan shearers spawned a coronavirus outbreak in a region of Spain

MÉRIDA, Spain. A group of 30 Uruguayan mowers and sent to work in the Autonomous Community of Extremadura in Spain, caused a coronavirus outbreak with 23 positive cases and 137 close contacts. It is suspected that it would be the Brazilian variant of Covid-19.

The group of workers landed at Madrid-Barajas airport on April 1, then most of them traveled by bus to Mérida, hired by a businessman from Extremadura. Some settled in the city while others decided to settle in Portugal.

José María Vergeles, Second Vice-President and Minister of Health and Social Services of the Junta de Extremadura, explained today at a press conference that the first positive case of coronavirus in this group of mowers was detected last Sunday, and the second case was diagnosed yesterday, in close contact with the former, as reported by the local edition of elDiario.es

For this reason, Sanidad Extremadura carried out coronavirus detection tests on the entire mower crew, in which 23 positive cases and 137 contacts were detected, and which gave “certain signals” which indicate that the variant of the coronavirus to which they belong may be different from the majority at this time.

Vergeles pointed out that the first tests carried out indicated that positive cases could belong to the Brazilian variant of the coronavirus, Although the genome is being sequenced to confirm it, the results will not be obtained until next Monday.

Thus, although being housed in a town in Extremadura, these shearers had contact with 34 cattle farms located in nine municipalities in the region, namely Esparragosa de Lares, Madrigalejo, Navalvillar de Pela, Puebla de Alcocer, Talarrubias, Logrosán, La Coronada, Almoharín and Alburquerque, which “considerably extended the network of close contacts”.

Extremadura notified the Ministry of Health “to collect information on the arrival of these mowers”, as well as on the passage of the plane and the bus in which they were traveling, and it was also transferred, by the intermediary of Foreign Health, to the Portuguese Government. because of the members of this group who might be in the neighboring country.

In his speech, Vergeles stressed that the positive coronaviruses are “perfectly isolated” in a town in Extremadura whose name he did not want to reveal, and stressed that they are under surveillance, and “if the isolation does not not happen, we would adopt or administrative police security measures. ”The network of contacts of these workers was also developed.

The representative of the health service of Extremadura stressed that this epidemic will affect the cumulative incidence of the coronavirus in Extremadura, and could continue to affect the days to come, but that “it is not due to the effects of Holy Week “.

Given the increased incidence of cases, the Autonomous Community will close from midnight today and for at least 14 days, four towns with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants. The junta’s Board of Governors today agreed to isolate the perimeter of one town in Badajoz and four in Cáceres.

Extremadura today reported the deaths of four people from coronavirus in the past 24 hours, a figure that had not been recorded since February, and a very significant increase in new infections, with a total of 151, i.e. nearly fifty more than Tuesday, according to a review by the local edition of elDiario.es. With these four deaths, the total number of deaths since the start of the pandemic in Extremadura stands at 1,738.

Europa press agency

THE NATION