Mourning Latin America’s highest proportional number of daily Covid-19 deaths to population

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Latin American and Caribbean region tops Thursday’s dismal world ranking for the number of daily coronavirus deaths per million inhabitants. According to varying figures from the Our World in Data website, nine of the top ten countries on the list are from this part of the world.

According to the most recent count, corresponding to May 26, this world ranking is headed by Guyana, Paraguay, Uruguay, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Bahrain, and Bolivia.

In the list, where South American countries are an alarming majority, Guyana appears as the nation with the highest number of deaths per million people with 16.53.

This small Caribbean country, with only 782,766 inhabitants, reports 16,556 cases of coronavirus and 374 deaths, according to the U.S. Johns Hopkins University.

In second place is Paraguay, with 15.42 deaths per million, followed by Uruguay (14.11), Trinidad and Tobago (12.15), Suriname (11.93), Argentina (11.77), Brazil (11.28), Colombia (10.10), Bahrain (9.40), and Bolivia (8.74).

WHO CALLS FOR IMPROVED VACCINATION, BUT…

Overall, the Americas had 66,597,170 cases of coronavirus and 1,630,109 deaths as of Wednesday, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

In Wednesday’s PAHO count, the highest number of new cases corresponded to Brazil, with 73,453, followed by Argentina (24,601), the United States (24,435), Colombia (21,181), Peru (5. 332), Chile (5,197), Uruguay (3,971), Canada (3,952), Paraguay (3,223), Bolivia (3,179), Mexico (2,483), Costa Rica (2,370), Guatemala (1,472), Venezuela (1,317) and Cuba (1,129).

In terms of deaths, the international organization states that during the period analyzed, the five most affected countries in the Americas were Brazil, with 2,173 deaths; the United States (588), Argentina (576), Colombia (459), and Mexico (265).

The figures come as no surprise, since last Saturday PAHO Director, Carissa Etienne, announced that in Latin America “the lives of more than one million people have been cut short by Covid-19”, so “this is a tragic milestone for all the inhabitants of the region”.

Etienne regretted that “the pandemic is hitting Latin America hard,” an area he described as “the epicenter of suffering from Covid-19,” and said that “it should also be an epicenter for vaccination.

However, the reality is very different since the official warned that of the more than 153.5 million people who have been vaccinated in the Americas, only 21.6% are in Latin America and the Caribbean.

ACTIONS IN THE MIDST OF THE EMERGENCY

Although the figures are not very encouraging, Latin American governments are trying to contain the virus as best they can.

In Argentina, for example, President Alberto Fernández tightened restrictions for nine days, starting last Friday, to face the onslaught of the second wave of covid-19 in the country.

Colombia’s Iván Duque did the same on Wednesday when he announced that he would extend for 90 days the sanitary emergency, which was declared for the first time in March last year, to boost economic reactivation.

Despite this, he clarified, the “opening of bars, restaurants and other entertainment spaces (will be given) when we have occupancy levels of ICUs below 85%”.

The Intensive Care Units (ICU) of Colombia, which number 11,319, reached last Monday their maximum occupancy point since the beginning of the pandemic, with a total of 7,857 seriously ill patients.

Likewise, the Bolivian regions of Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, Oruro, and Tarija have set up a rigid quarantine in which the movement of people and vehicles is restricted, in addition to the closure of commercial activities.

In fact, this Thursday, it was known that Cochabamba and Santa Cruz are suffering from insufficient medical oxygen, a saturation of the Intensive Care Units (ICU), and a lack of medicines.

Despite this, the new quarantine is a decision not shared by Luis Arce’s Administration, which is now focused on reactivation to save itself from the other pandemic that is hurting Latin America and the Caribbean: economic bankruptcy.

Chile is one step ahead by vaccinating more than 51% of the target population -9.7 million people-, a mark that places it as the second country in the world with the second-largest fully inoculated population after Israel, according to data from Oxford University.

And, as if it were a vision of the future of the world, the Chilean authorities launched on Wednesday the digital “vaccination card” that allows those who have already been inoculated to leave the quarantine zones and travel between regions, something that has been prohibited for months.