Covid-19: Argentina sets second straight death record with 557 fatalities

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The number of deaths surpassed Thursday’s record 537 fatalities. In addition, the Ministry of Health announced 27,884 new cases in its evening report, thereby raising the total number infections to 2,824,652.

The number of infections reported on Friday, a daily record 29,472 cases, marks an increase over Thursday’s, with 27,216. In the province of Buenos Aires 14,233 cases were reported on Friday, with 2,929 in the Argentine capital.

According to the daily report issued by the Argentine Ministry of Health, 2,474,514 people have been discharged, while 4,805 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of Covid-19 remain in intensive care units (ICUs).

The ICU bed occupancy rate for all types of pathologies stands at 66.5% at the national level, but at 76.2% when considering only Buenos Aires and its populous periphery.

So far, 10.6 million tests have been conducted in Argentina to detect the virus, of which 86,860 were performed on Friday.

For the past three weeks, Argentina has been experiencing a dizzying surge in the number of Covid-19 cases, with ICU bed occupancy rates increasing.

Given this scenario, since last April 9th and until April 30th, nighttime traffic restrictions have been in force, which the government of Alberto Fernández decreed to extend in Buenos Aires and its periphery since last Friday.

The Executive also ordered that in Buenos Aires and its urban area, Argentina’s most populated area and where the highest number of coronavirus cases are registered, school classes will be suspended for two weeks – a restriction to be settled in the courts – as well as recreational, social, cultural, sports and religious activities and gastronomic services in closed places, and that stores will operate in a limited schedule.

While facing the onslaught of the second wave of Covid-19, Argentina, with a population of some 45 million inhabitants, continues with its vaccination campaign against the coronavirus, which began at the end of December last year.

By Friday, Argentina has received 8,262,308 doses of coronavirus vaccines and has inoculated 6,951,810 people, 865,639 of them with two doses.