America, which reports that 55.7 million people are infected with the coronavirus, is resuming imprisonment on the eve of Holy Week due to an alarming rise in the number of cases and deaths and fears posed by the region’s three “troubling variants”. unleash.
According to data from the American Johns Hopkins University, the continent already has 55,785,829 people who have contracted the disease.
The figure, which continues to grow, forced authorities in much of the region to reintroduce mandatory quarantines or night clocks to protect the population, especially due to its proximity to Holy Week.
This season, in which Catholic faithful take to the streets in droves to visit places of pilgrimage, has sparked fears of a new and fatal wave of the pandemic in this part of the world.
Variants of interest to PAHO
The fear is heightened when one takes into account that the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) reported last Friday that 32 countries and territories of America have discovered cases of infection from one of three “worrisome variants” of the virus that causes covid. -19, SARS-CoV-2.
These variants, the international organization explained, “may increase the transmissibility of the virus and its virulence or decrease the effectiveness of public health and social measures or diagnoses, vaccines and therapies”.
At present, the places that have reported one or more of these variants are known to be Argentina, Aruba, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Bonaire, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curacao, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, French Guiana and Guadeloupe.
They also include Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Martin, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, United States of America, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
To date, the World Health Organization has classified three “variants of concern” of SARS-CoV-2, identified in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil, known as B.1.1.7, B. 1.351 and B.1.1.28.1.
Mega quarantine in Chile
Chile has become a real case study, regarded as a world example of the agility with which it has inoculated its population, but where cases run uncontrollably so high that residents today are preparing for a weekend of mega-quarantine.
There, 97% of the nearly 19 million residents will be incarcerated and shopping permits suspended after the new daily infections broke records and crossed the 7,600 mark.
In the South American country, hospital occupancy is 95%, only 160 intensive care beds are available, and Brazilian and British variants of the disease are known to circulate.
The drastic measure follows the measure taken between May and August last year, in the worst months of the pandemic for Chileans, which to date has left 962,321 infected and 22,587 dead, despite 40% of residents already having at least one dose. of the anticovid vaccine.
In explaining the case of Chile, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) anticovid engineering unit, Maria Van Kerkhove, said that “after the distribution of vaccines, there are people who stop adhering to measures such as physical distance, hand hygiene, ventilation or avoiding crowded places, all in addition to vaccination. “
Brazil and Mexico have hopes for vaccines
Two of the most Catholic countries in the world, Brazil and Mexico, embrace the hope that the virus will stop victimizing because of the processions, masses and other religious celebrations of Holy Week.
And it is that the South American giant, Brazil, recorded 3,650 deaths from covid-19 in the past 24 hours, a record that brought the total number to 307,112.
In addition, 84,245 new infected people were counted this Friday, leading to 12,404,414 the number of people infected.
The alarming numbers come on the same day it was reported that there are at least two ongoing processes to develop Brazilian vaccines against covid-19, although it will take several months for the first to be openly used.
Meanwhile, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro entered a long holiday period for Holy Week this Friday that will last ten days.
To do this, the mayors decided this year and the next to advance some holidays and ban non-essential activities.
Mexico, for its part, outnumbered 200,000 deaths from covid-19, the third-highest figure in the world, in hopes of speeding up its vaccination plan, but with the threat of a third wave after the Easter holidays.
The optimism of immunization is hitting the reality of a “third wave” of infections coming after Easter that “will leave behind a raw spring,” warned Carolina Gómez, an expert at the Mexican Public Health Society.
To prevent this, the Mexican government has published a decalogue recommending family travel to a place close to home and to do so in groups of no more than five people.
Fear does not go away
The fear of the coronavirus has persisted in America to such an extent that the Argentine government will suspend all regular flights connecting the country to Brazil, Chile and Mexico from next Saturday.
Also, Paraguay will return to strict quarantine from March 27 through Palm Sunday (April 4) to slow the transmission of the virus and decompress hospitals full of patients and without intensive care beds.
Likewise, the Colombian government has set night clocks for the next two weekends, and in Guatemala a limit of 100 people per beach has been imposed for Holy Week.