New COVID Cases Decrease in South America, Except for Argentina

COVID-19 deaths are declining steadily across South America since July. Brazil, the worst-hit country in the region, has seen a 40% decrease in both daily infections and deaths from the virus in the past three months, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Uruguay’s Public Health Minister, Daniel Salinas, has claimed that the virus is “under control” and that there are hardly a few active cases in the country.  Even Colombia, the second worst-hit country in the region, is seeing a significant decline in fatalities.

Across the region, a large majority of patients are not requiring hospital treatment, an indication that the fatality rate is set to fall steeply in the weeks to come.

The reduction in new infections could be because of the precautionary measures adopted by the general public.

However, the virus appears to be spreading like wildfire in Argentina, with the South American country reporting a record number of daily infections in the past few days.

Meanwhile, epidemiologists are warning that the region could see a second wave of infections if it ignored the social distancing measures.

Brazil

Latin America’s largest economy registered 11,946 new confirmed cases on Monday, bringing the total to 4,927,235, and 146,675 deaths.

Brazil is second only to the United States when it comes to the number of COVID-19 deaths.

Peru

Peru has so far reported more than 829,000 coronavirus infections and 32,800 deaths.  The country has the world’s highest per capita death rates.

Recent studies say that 1 in 4 residents in the capital, Lima, could have been infected with the virus. The situation is far worse in rural areas.

Yet, the country has continued to reopen the economy.  Last week, it reopened Jorge Chavez International Airport in the capital Lima.

Argentina

The infection rate in Argentina hit 809,728 on Monday. The country is reporting an average of 12,500 new daily infections in the past seven days. Already, more than 20,000 people died of the disease.

Colombia

Colombia has more than 841,500 confirmed cases and 26,397 deaths. Bogota, which accounts for almost a third of the country’s cases, has reported 6,825 deaths.

Chile

Chile has reported 470,179 infections, but most of the patients have recovered.  So far, the country has lost 12,979 people to the virus.

The government has continued to say that following precautionary measures holds the key to contain the virus.

Uruguay

Home to 3.5 million people, Uruguay has so far reported 2,061 confirmed cases of the virus, with 48 deaths. Most of the infected people have recovered from the disease.

Today there are barely 204 active cases, according to the country’s Health Ministry.