|
 "I have been left alone," Valle Pereyra told Reuters, saying that
she and her siblings were isolating from one another to avoid
contagion. "First my mother died and then my father. I don't know
what to feel any more about this terrible disease."
Argentina has been one of the hardest-hit countries in the region in
terms of cases and deaths per capita, with some 4.7 million
confirmed infections and a death toll from the pandemic expected to
pass 100,000 people later on Wednesday. (Graphic on cases and
deaths) https://tmsnrt.rs/34pvUyi
Daily average cases have fallen since a peak last month and ICU bed
occupancy is coming down, though still above 60% nationwide.
"Every life that has gone is a great regret for me," President
Alberto Fernandez said in a speech last week. "I guarantee that we
are not going to stop in these months vaccinating each and every
Argentine man and woman."
While developed countries like the United States have reduced
fatalities with rapid inoculation programs, countries in South
America have topped the charts for daily per capita cases and
deaths, with vaccines rollouts stalled by slow supply.
Argentina, a country of some 45 million people, has carried out over
25 million vaccine jabs, though only 5 million people are inoculated
with the full two doses, mainly using Russia's Sputnik V,
AstraZeneca's vaccine and China's Sinopharm.
The vaccine rollout is raising hopes that the country can control
the pandemic, but the more contagious Delta variant is igniting
surges in cases even in countries like Israel with high vaccination
rates, causing them to rethink their vaccination campaigns https://tmsnrt.rs/2TbE5vy.
'RELATIVES CALL US CRYING'
The pandemic has sharpened an economic crisis already existing in
Argentina, which has been largely stuck in recession since 2018 with
rampant inflation, strict capital controls and a weak peso currency
sparking an outflow of dollars.
[to top of second column] |
 "It's not just the pandemic
drowning us in this country. There is also the
huge economic crisis," said Gastón Rusichi, 34,
from a team of firefighters in Cordoba who have
taken charge of transferring the dead during the
pandemic.
"Many relatives call us crying, not only because
of the death, but because they don't have the
money... to be able to give a burial as a person
deserves," added Rusichi, who works 12-hour
shifts in a biohazard suit for safety.
Argentina's government reimposed lockdown
measures earlier this year amid a steep second
wave of infections, some of which have since
been rolled back. It has a strict cap on
arrivals at the border in a bid to keep out
contagious virus variants.
Ezequiel González, a 35-year-old worker in
Buenos Aires suburb Tigre, said that it was hard
to see how the country could have stopped the
pandemic given the need to balance restrictions
while battling rising poverty levels.
"We would all have had to lock ourselves up
completely and that's very difficult. You have
to go out to the street to earn money to be able
to eat and survive," he said.
A local laboratory is now starting to produce
Sputnik V to speed up inoculations and the
country recently sealed a deal for 20 million
doses of Moderna's vaccine.
Lautaro Fabian Gomez, 20, however, said lax
attitudes by some people going out into crowded
areas without wearing face masks was stymieing
improvements.
"It makes me very angry and helpless," he said.
"It seems to me that if this is how we act then
we are going to have the coronavirus here until
2050."
(Reporting by Agustín Marcarian and Miguel Lo
Bianco; Written by Lucila Sigal; Editing by
Nicolas Misculin, Adam Jourdan and Lisa
Shumaker)
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