Uruguay has allowed its first major public holidays since the start of the pandemic: what will be the rules

Given the low level of covid-19 cases in Uruguay, the Ministry of Public Health has updated the protocols prepared for parties and events on one of the busiest nights of the year. The call Nostalgia Night, for Uruguayans, it is a date on which it is organized a large number of evenings to dance to music from the ’60s,’ 70s, ’80s and’ 90s.

The protocol will be in effect from this Monday, just before the Night of Nostalgia which begins to be celebrated this Tuesday. Groups that include immune people can have up to 200 people indoors and 300 outdoors. Those that allow unvaccinated people will be able to collect up to 100 indoors and 150 outdoors. And they can stretch until five in the morning.

The dancing will be allowed for forty minutes every hour, although only at parties with immune people. These indications do not apply to clandestine parties which, until now, have been the source of numerous infections in Uruguay. Regarding the use of face masks, the Ministry of Public Health recommends it, although it is not mandatory.

Nostalgia Night is the first party in which dance parties will be activated since the arrival of covid-19 in the country in March 2020.

Figures

On March 23, the SINAE (National Emergency System) reported 80 new cases of covid-19 and zero deaths. Of the 1,367 people with the disease, 18 of them are admitted to intensive treatment centers (ICS).

Uruguay is in the yellow zone of the Harvard index with each of its departments, including Montevideo, now on average 1 to 10 new cases per day, for every hundred thousand inhabitants.

These encouraging figures are what allowed Luis Lacalle Pou to announce at a press conference on August 9 that the Council of Ministers had allowed the Nostalgia Night protocols and that it had resolved the gradual opening of borders from 1 September.

“Foreign owners who are vaccinated will be allowed to enter our country and they will need a negative PCR upon entry. On November 1, the opening of the borders will be more important. We’re going to have over 75% immunization for a long time. We are going to give the third dose almost in its entirety and we will allow the entry of all foreigners who are immunized and who have a negative PCR, ”said the president.

In addition, he reported that on August 18, during a match in which Peñarol, the Uruguayan football team, will play for the South American Cup, an audience will be allowed in the stands. The capacity will be five thousand people vaccinated.

Once the press conference was over, Public Health Minister Daniel Salinas announced via his Twitter account that on August 24, other activities such as weddings or quinceanera parties would resume.

According to Lacalle Pou, the country is “Towards the establishment of the cessation of the health emergency” no specific dates.

Vaccination

In May 2021, Uruguay went from one of the countries controlling the pandemic to the third country in the world in number of cases, according to the Harvard index, which counts the existing cases per 100,000 inhabitants. It was only passed by the Maldives and Bahrain. On May 21, the country recorded its record of infections: 4,692 new cases in one day.

Despite the fact that the vaccination campaign started on February 27 with the vaccinators themselves and with the first population group on March 1, the effects of collective immunity only became visible in June. Between the 2nd and the 11th of this month, the number of patients admitted to intensive care decreased. The reduction was 102 people in ten days.

The booster vaccination campaign, offering the population vaccinated against Coronavac a third dose of Pfizer, began in early August. According to the Our World in Data database, Uruguay is currently ranked fourth in the world for the vaccinated population. It is overtaken by the United Arab Emirates in first place, Malta in second and Singapore in third.

The Ministry of Public Health indicates that as of August 23, 2021, the percentage of the population inoculated with a first dose is 74.59% and, with a second, 69.64%. With a large number of Uruguayans having completed the immunization schedule of pharmaceutical companies Sinovac, AstraZeneca and Pfizer, today 44,296 people are scheduled for the Pfizer booster dose.

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