Argentina, which experienced a recent increase in coronavirus cases, is the fifth Latin American nation to reach 100,000 deaths.
Argentina has become the fifth country in Latin America to exceed 100,000 deaths related to COVID-19, as the country suffers an increase in coronavirus cases which have strained their health care network and worsened an already severe economic crisis.
On Wednesday, the Argentine health ministry said the country recorded 614 new deaths in the past 24 hours.
It has now reported 100,250 coronavirus deaths and 4.7 million cases since the pandemic began, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Argentina has been one of the most affected countries in Latin America, but the daily average of cases has fallen since last month’s high and bed occupancy in the ICU is falling, although it still exceeds 60 percent across the country.
The head of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Carissa Etienne, warned on Wednesday that “infections are on the rise again” in the country, however.
“Cases increase when complacency occurs. We are all tired, but after experiencing successive peaks of infections in the same places, we must break this cycle by adopting public health measures early and consistently,” Etienne dit during a weekly briefing.
The Argentine government again imposed blocking measures earlier this year amid a strong wave of infections, some of which have been reversed. It has a strict limit on arrivals at the border to avoid contagious virus variants.
“Every life that has passed is a great sorrow for me,” President Alberto Fernandez said in a speech last week. “I guarantee that we will not stop vaccinating all Argentine men and women in all these months.”
But many citizens are still struggling to cope with the effects of the pandemic.
Fifty-year-old Sandra del Valle Pereyra had come to the cemetery of San Vicente, in the central city of Córdoba, to visit the graves of her parents who both died due to COVID-19.
“I was left alone,” Valle Pereyra told Reuters, saying she and her siblings isolated themselves from each other to prevent infection. “First my mother died and then my father. I don’t know what to feel about this terrible disease. “
“It’s not just the pandemic that is drowning us in this country. There is also the huge economic crisis, ”said Gaston Rusichi, 34, of a team of firefighters from Córdoba who took charge of transporting the dead during the pandemic.
“Many relatives call us crying, not just for death, but because they don’t have the money … to be able to bury as a person deserves,” Rusichi added.
During Argentina’s virus peak in April, more than 80 percent of ICU beds were in use.
More than 20.6 million people in the country have received at least one dose of the vaccine, of which 5.1 million are completely immunized, according to authorities.
To date, more than 60 percent of the adult population and 45 percent of the total have had at least one dose.
