Uruguay adds 60 deaths and 3,344 new Covid-19 cases (May 19)

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Uruguay added this Wednesday 60 deaths and 3,344 new cases of covid-19 after processing 14,060 tests, according to the daily report issued by the National Emergency System (Sinae).

The deaths this day were of people between 33 and 95 years old. The most affected department (province) was Montevideo, with 23 of the 60 deaths.

Thus, Uruguay has 249,365 cases of SARS-CoV-2 diagnosed since the beginning of the pandemic, of which 27,870 are persons with the disease, 492 of these admitted to intensive treatment centers (ITC), and 3,638 are deceased.

Regarding new cases, the capital city was also the most affected with 1,559 cases, while Canelones (south) was in second place with 340 positive cases.

According to the daily report presented by the Uruguayan Society of Intensive Care Medicine, 76.2% of the 1,014 beds in the aforementioned centers are currently occupied, and 52.1% of these are due to cases of coronavirus.

According to the Harvard index, the 19 departments of the country are in the red zone, having accumulated more than 25 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last seven days.

The most affected department is Salto (north) with 150.40 index, followed by Tacuarembó (north) with 131.04.

Despite the high number of cases and deaths, the government announced the reopening of duty-free stores on the dry border with Brazil (freeshops) and gyms, starting next Monday.

Likewise, the Executive is preparing a decree to stop requiring the mandatory seven-day quarantine for Uruguayans or residents entering the country with two vaccine doses and a negative PCR test.

With respect to vaccination, 1,482,456 people have been inoculated with the first dose from the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac, the Anglo-Swedish company AstraZeneca and the U.S. company Pfizer, and 961,816 with the second dose from Pfizer or Sinovac.

This means that 42.28% of the population has the first dose, and 27.43% has the second.

This Saturday, 119,340 doses of Pfizer arrived in Uruguay, as well as a second batch of vaccines that the country receives through the Covax mechanism of the World Health Organization (WHO), with 50,400 doses of AstraZeneca, while the country’s Secretary of the Presidency, Álvaro Delgado, informed that next May 28, 550,000 doses of CoronaVac would arrive.