the semaphore of the first 500 days of the pandemic

The country is among those with the most infections and deaths in the world. There were few tests and the vaccination started late. The good news is that the health care system has not collapsed so far.

Since December 2019, the world She turned with the appearance of Covid-19. A little over 16 months ago, the coronavirus arrived in Argentina. Are filled 500 days since the first imported case – a traveler returning from Italy – was confirmed by the government. This Wednesday the country passed the 100 thousand dead, at the rate of 200 per day on average.

Each country has sought its own way of dealing with the health crisis. But what has brought the entire planet together are the drastic changes in habits, restrictions and, to a greater or lesser extent, isolation and quarantine. Life has become something else.

No nation could escape the most dreaded curve, that of the dead. Some governments have succeeded better results than others. The key was in the efforts each country made to deal with this unprecedented health crisis.

Argentina, which has exceeded 4 million infected in one year and three months. Only 9 countries they had that dramatic mark. Our country was also the nation with the fewest inhabitants to reach such a level of cases. Today the country is located in the eighth place in the world in absolute number of infections and in 16 ° infections per million inhabitants.

Our country is ranked third in South America for the number of deaths per million inhabitants behind Peru and Brazil; ranked 13th globally and 11th in absolute number of deaths. But if you only consider countries with populations over 20 million, Argentina was among the top five. To have four times more deaths than it should for its people.

In this context, Argentina is located in the 99th place in the world ranking tests per million inhabitants. In Latin America, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay and Chile have tested more than Argentina. According to the WHO, a healthy positivity rate would be 10 percent. In Argentina, during the second wave, this index exceeded 30 percent.

Argentina did not have the beds and respirators enough to cope with the crisis. The Government has decided to initiate an early quarantine, in March 2020, to strengthen this health response. Then, the quarantine would be extended without interruption until November 8.

According to official information, the number of intensive care beds increased by 37%, and the number of ventilators by 38%. The 8,521 intensive care units in the country before the pandemic increased to 11,668. Respirators went from 6,211 to 8,602.

One of the most controversial points in the management of the pandemic in Argentina has been manage quarantine. Preventive and mandatory social isolation was extended by 232 days in 2020: one of the longest quarantines in the world.

The economic palliative ordered by the government only partially cushioned the crisis. Many SMEs and commercial premises have had to lower their blinds. Economic activity has fallen sharply 12 percent, a value that places it among the four most affected economies on the planet.

The quarantine also had a total impact on education. Most Argentinian students spent the whole of 2020 without face-to-face lessons. This deepened the differences between boys with the most and the least access to technology. It is estimated that a million students they reportedly dropped out of school last year.

The lack of vaccines against Covid is a global problem. In South America, however, Chile and Uruguay managed to take off quickly from the rest of the countries in the region. Argentina was moving slowly. the Instituto Gamalea Russia was supposed to deliver 20 million vaccines by February 2021, but in May it had just shipped 8 million doses. AstraZeneca They were due to start shipping their batches in March, but it wasn’t until the end of May that they delivered the first of a contract for 22.4 million doses.

Eight months later After the adoption of the vaccine law in Congress, President Alberto Fernández signed a DNU which allows the purchase of doses from the Pfizer laboratory. In South America, seven countries already have this vaccine: Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Paraguay.

Another problem was that the vaccines available they were not applied as quickly as the crisis demanded. Between March and May, there was an average stock of 2 million unapplied doses. Today the 45.7% of Argentines are vaccinated with one dose and 11.3, with two. Only 1 in 4 vaccinated completed his plan.

The Covid is today a tragedy multiplied by a hundred thousand in Argentina. The pandemic will continue and it is not known for how long. The virus, unfortunately, will continue to take revenge. The question is whether the country will be able to correct the pandemic management decisions that have hurt it so far.

PS