As concern grows about the increase in cases of coronavirus across the country, the president Alberto Fernandez summoned the governors to a virtual emergency meeting in order to analyze new sanitary measures to combat the advance of COVID-19, especially in summer resorts, squares and bars. The meeting will take place this Wednesday, by videoconference, at 11:30.
After the marches, the end of the year meetings and the Holidays, the official health records of the last days indicate that a new stage of the pandemic is approaching. In this context, the President held telephone conversations with several governors to convey his restlessness and receive perceptions from inside. According to official sources, “all” showed “very similar” looks in terms of “concern” about the situation. “They see people very undisciplined and aggressive when faced with the demand of the authorities to respect protocols”, they reported.
In this sense, the Government evaluates measures aimed at restrict evening social activities, although they prefer to avoid the concept of “curfew” that various officials used since the first versions of the new initiatives against coronavirus. In Casa Rosada and in Olivos there is talk that they are coming “Sanitary restrictions”, “night closure” and “daytime control of the security forces”.
The main objective of these initiatives, which are not yet confirmed and will depend in part on the outcome of the dialogue with the governors, will be to prevent crowds, especially in places for summer vacation recreation, such as beaches.
Meanwhile, the cities will seek avoid having meetings without basic care, such as social distancing or the use of masks in private places, such as bars and restaurants, but also in public places, such as squares. The images of the meetings in open parks on Christmas Eve and New Years, both in the City of Buenos Aires and in the suburbs, set off alarms about public places as sources of contagion.
As reported tonight by the Ministry of Health of the Nation, during the last 24 hours the highest number of infections was registered since October, with 13,790 new positive cases of COVID-19. So far, the total number of infected reached 1,662,730.
The call for governors comes a week after the start of the coronavirus vaccination campaign in the country, which began on Tuesday, December 29. Despite the celebration of the arrival of the shipment from Moscow with the first 300,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine, during the last days the Government made a meticulous follow-up of the numbers of infected and the occupation of beds in the Intensive Care Units ( ICU) in health centers throughout the country. Currently there 3,460 people hospitalized and the percentage of occupancy at the national level is 54%. The numbers are worrying and the Government is considering ways to prevent a second wave from taking place, as happened in Europe, taking into account that most of the population will not be immunized, at least, until the middle of the year.
At the beginning of this week, the president had summoned the Buenos Aires governor, Axel Kicillof, and the head of the Buenos Aires government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, to jointly analyze the situation in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (AMBA), where infections increased markedly during the last two weeks of December.
The meeting was to take place this Wednesday, but this afternoon Alberto Fernández extended the call to the rest of the governors. For now, it is not defined if it will finally take place or when the conversation with Kicillof and Rodríguez Larreta will be. Meanwhile, the official figures of the last report reflected that there were 5,419 new cases in the province of Buenos Aires and 1,445 in the City of Buenos Aires, while the occupancy of beds reaches 58.1%.
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