Uruguay registers record number of daily infections and active Covid-19 cases (March 11th)

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Thursday, March 11th, Uruguay broke its record of daily Covid-19 infections with 1,238 new cases and also of the number of active cases, 9,261, according to the latest report by the National Emergency System ( SINAE).

In addition, 5 deaths were recorded, bringing Uruguay’s death toll to 683, with 102 hospitalized in intensive care.

There had not been this many daily cases in Uruguay since January 10th, when 1,215 were registered and the country was in full summer vacation. After that period, according to experts, Uruguay reached the plateau of the first wave of the pandemic.

SINAE’s daily report on Thursday showed that 12,438 SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus tests were performed, of which 1,238 were positive (close to a 10% positivity rate), and 1,101,948 tests were performed (67,717 positive) since the sanitary emergency was decreed on March 13th, 2020.

These figures, which are of concern to experts and health authorities, were recorded just hours before the Ministry of Public Health (MSP) began vaccinating health professionals with the Pfizer vaccines and when almost 170,000 people have already been administered CoronaVac doses (of the 192,000 that were delivered on February 25th).

There are currently eight departments (provinces) in red: Montevideo, San José, Cerro Largo, Durazno, Tacuarembó, Rivera, Artigas and Río Negro. Of these, the most affected is Rivera, bordering Brazil, with 66.19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the latest report from Covid-19 GUIAD (Uruguayan Interdisciplinary Group for Data Analysis).

Over 1.5 million doses of the Chinese Sinovac are expected to be delivered by March 15th, and 460,000 doses from Pfizer by April 26th.

The Uruguayan government aims to ensure that there is no “dead time”, as president Luis Lacalle Pou said in February, between the aforementioned deliveries and completing the purchase made by Uruguay of 3.8 million doses -between the Chinese and US laboratories- and the reserve of 1.5 million from the Covax facility, created by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Source: Infobae