Latin America, six months with COVID-19 with 264,891 deaths and 6.89 million cases

Six months after the first case of coronavirus was detected in Latin America and the Caribbean, this region is the epicentre of a pandemic that has left at least 264,891 people dead and 6,890,695 infected up to this Wednesday, with no way of controlling COVID-19 despite small advances and with a view to long-term solutions such as a vaccine. Half a year after the first case of the disease in all Latin America was detected in Brazil on 26 February, the country is now the second with the most cases (3.7 million) and deaths (117,665) worldwide, with 30,000 of these deaths recorded in the past 30 days and the epidemiological curve still rising in many areas.

In the global list, Brazil is only surpassed by another American country, the United States (5.8 million cases and 179,344 deaths), so this continent accounts for nearly 55 percent of the 24 million worldwide infections and 821. 909 deaths worldwide, in addition to which four other American nations are among the ten most affected in the world: Peru in sixth place (607,382 cases), Mexico in seventh (568,621), Colombia in eighth (562,113) and Chile in tenth (402,365), according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. An even more complicated situation if one considers that, as the World Health Organisation (WHO) said this week, Colombia and Argentina are among the twelve countries with the most daily cases in the world in the last week.

However, the WHO also gave good news on a day when it spoke of a significant reduction in the global daily figures, with 324,000 cases in the last seven days compared to 863,000 in the previous week in the Americas and a slowdown in contagion in the USA and Brazil. This is part of the small steps the continent is taking in combating the pandemic, to which must be added the news of the decline in several of the most inhabited districts on the outskirts of Santiago de Chile, which was the main focus of the coronavirus for months in the South American country.

For its part, El Salvador has been showing a downward trend in cases of the disease, with 154 new infections on Tuesday, the lowest number since August 10, when the number of cases began to fall after averaging over 400. In addition, and despite the delicate situation it is currently going through, Colombia learned today that the experimental vaccine against COVID-19 being developed by Johnson & Johnson and its group of pharmaceutical companies, Janssen, will be tested between the first and second week of September in the country, according to information from the Hospital Universidad del Norte, in Barranquilla (north). In addition, the biotech company Moderna said its vaccine generated a "promising" immune response in elderly patients after conducting an early-stage clinical trial and testing its prototype in ten adults between 56 and 70 years of age and another ten over 71 years of age.

Despite these advances, concern is growing elsewhere, such as in Peru, which from this point onwards is the country with the highest number of deaths per capita (85.8 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) from the coronavirus and which saw its health workers go on strike on Wednesday to demand reforms to the devastated health system, a larger budget and improved working and biosafety conditions. "We have a budget (for 2021) of 20 billion soles (some 5.714 billion dollars), which is less than 700 soles (200 dollars) per Peruvian per year," the president of the Peruvian Medical Federation (FMP), Godofredo Talavera, told Efe. He was among dozens of doctors, nurses and health technicians who demonstrated in the last few hours.

In the Caribbean, the authorities of the Bahamas, Surinam and Jamaica, among other countries in that region, expressed their concern at the sharp increase in cases recorded in recent days and especially in the past 24 hours, and in Guatemala, the government asked for the state of emergency to be extended by another month due to the expansion of COVID-19, which to date has left more than 2,600 deaths and 69,000 cases in the country. On Wednesday, the Argentinian government rejected a project in the opposition-run city of Buenos Aires to open digital spaces in schools for students without connectivity, who were cut off from the education system during the quarantine, which forced the suspension of classes from March onwards, on the grounds that the capital "did not comply with the low levels of circulation of the virus".

The Argentine government, in turn, rejected on Wednesday a project by the city of Buenos Aires, governed by the opposition, to open digital spaces in schools for students without connectivity who broke away from the educational system during the quarantine, which forced the suspension of classes since March, on the grounds that the capital "did not comply with the low levels of circulation of the virus.

In the midst of this health panorama, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) proposed that the countries of the region provide their citizens with a basic basket of information and communication technologies to guarantee and universalize digital connectivity and to confront the impacts caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

This basket would consist of a laptop computer, a smartphone, a tablet and a connection plan for unconnected households and would cost less than 1% of the regional average gross domestic product (GDP) per year. "Digital technologies have been essential for the functioning of the economy and society during the pandemic," but nevertheless, "access gaps condition the right to health, education and work, while they can increase socio-economic inequalities," said ECLAC Executive Secretary Alicia Bárcena in a virtual conference.