America reported 437,000 new cases of coronavirus on Friday, the second worst daily pandemic figure, bringing the total to 37 million patients, a high price the continent began to pay after the Christmas and New Year holidays. .
Worldwide, cases have reached 86.4 million today, after 735,000 recent infections were recorded in the last 24 hours, most of them in America.
In terms of deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) places 900,000 on the continent after 7,200 this Friday.
This new wave of infections has been predicted by health authorities and is the result of trade crowds shopping for Christmas and family reunions at the end of the year.
This upward curve of cases is suffered mainly by the United States, which has 21 million patients and in which vaccination is progressing slowly.
The president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, said on Friday that his administration will immediately distribute all available doses of the vaccine.
“Vaccines give us hope, but the distribution was stupid,” Biden said at a ceremony in Wilmington, Delaware.
Anthony Fauci, the US government’s leading infectious disease expert, said the United States could reach one million vaccinations a day, with which by June 2022 alone, about 80 percent of the country’s population would receive immunizations.
Brazil has eight million infected
Brazil, America’s second most affected country by the pandemic, has recorded 52,035 new cases of Covid in the past 24 hours, surpassing the eight million mark.
The South American giant also reported 962 new deaths.
Thus, since the first case of the disease appeared, on February 26 last year and the first death on March 12, Brazil has accumulated 201,406 deaths caused by coronavirus and 8,013,708 infections.
The increase in deaths and infections is taking place at a time when Brazil has not yet set a date for the start of the vaccination campaign, although Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello has said it could start on January 20th.
In fact, the National Agency for Health Surveillance (Anvisa), the Brazilian regulatory authority, has already received the request for emergency use of the vaccine developed in the country by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac together with the Brazilian Institute Butantan.
The request was submitted by the Butantan Institute after the Government of Sao Paulo, on which the research center depends, announced the day before that studies conducted with volunteers from the country showed that this vaccine has an effectiveness of 78%.
The state-run Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) Foundation has also applied for permission to use two million doses of emergency vaccine from the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
Alarm in Colombia
In Latin America, the case of Colombia is worrying, adding 18,221 new cases of covid-19 today, the second consecutive record, which raised the number of people who contracted the disease since the first infection to 1,755,568 was reported on March 6. 2020.
In addition to the large number of infections, the Ministry of Health mentioned that there were 364 deaths, the highest number since September 1 when the country had 389 deaths.
As a consequence of this return, the Colombian capital, Bogota, is on red alert, with shops closed and a relatively low traffic of people and cars.
With ICU beds occupied by more than 85% and almost a third of all cases of illness, Bogota Mayor Claudia López said yesterday the red alert, as well as the total restriction of mobility from midnight Thursday to four in the morning of January 12 future.
Other Colombian cities, such as Medellín, the second most important, Cali, Cartagena, Ibagué and Bucaramanga, have taken steps to avoid mass travel this weekend celebrating the festive bridge of the Kings and thus prevent infections.
Restrictions in Argentina and Mexico
To stop the return of covid-19 during the summer, the Argentine government issued a decree on Friday urging provincial governors to restrict night traffic if the epidemiological situation requires it and extended the closure of borders to international tourism.
Since March 2020, Argentina has registered 1,690,006 people with coronavirus, and currently intensive care beds are at 54.7% of their capacity nationwide.
The concern of Alberto Fernández’s executive appears in a context of a sudden increase of the contagion curve in the summer season.
This is attributed to society’s greater neglect of distance measures, with crowded beaches and clandestine parties, but also echoes of mass rallies, such as the wake of Diego Armando Maradona in late November and demonstrations around the abortion law. less than two weeks ago.
Similarly, Mexico City will keep non-essential activities closed until at least January 15 to stop the covid-19 advance, despite the fact that the announced closure period ended on Sunday, government chief Claudia Sheinbaum reported.
The official described it as “essential for maintaining the situation of reduced mobility” in the capital, with a second total closure that began on 19 December.
The capital is the main outbreak of the pandemic in the country, accumulating over 354,000 infections and almost 23,000 deaths caused by covid-19, while Mexico is approaching 1.5 million cases and adds over 131,000 deaths.
Moreover, hospital occupancy in Mexico City is 86%, an identical percentage for both general hospitalization and intubation beds.