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Latin America is now focusing its efforts on ensuring access to a possible vaccine against the coronavirus, which already leaves around 9 million infected and 331,000 deaths in the region, in the midst of an uncertain reopening process due to outbreaks around the world.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported this Friday that global cases of COVID-19 exceeded 32 million, while the death toll rises to 979,212.
Of this total, some 16.1 million positive cases correspond to America, while the second most affected region, South Asia, exceeds 6.5 million, followed by Europe with 5.4 million.
(Read also: The world is close to reaching one million deaths from coronavirus)
The American continent adds more than 540,000 deaths, compared to 232,000 in Europe and 108,000 in South Asia, so that the three regions concentrate more than 85% of deaths and also of positive ones on the planet.
According to the WHO, while the daily contagion curve continues to rise strongly in Europe, where it has already exceeded 60,000 in some days, it has fallen slowly in America since the end of July, but continues to exceed 100,000 positives for many days.
(Further: There are more than 25 thousand deaths from covid-19 in Colombia; recovered reach 687,477)
Half of the coronavirus cases have been registered in America.
By countries, the United States, India and Brazil continue to be the three most affected in the world in both cases and deaths.
As for America, six countries on the continent are among the top ten in the world in number of cases: the United States is the nation with the most infected (7 million) and deaths (more than 203,000), third is Brazil, followed by Colombia (5), Peru (6) Mexico (8) and Argentina (9th place).
Within Latin America, Brazil reports almost 4.7 million infected and more than 140,000 deaths, followed by Colombia (790,800 cases and almost 25,000 deaths) and Peru (around 789,000 sick and 32,000 deaths).
Behind them are Mexico (715,000 infections and more than 75,400 deaths) and Argentina, with one of the most ascending graphs among the 10 most affected countries in the world, with 678,000 cases and more than 14,700 deaths.
With this, America accumulates around 16.1 million infected and 545,000 deaths. And of that figure, the Latin American and Caribbean region reports about 9 million cases (28% of the global total) and more than 331,000 deaths.
Grim records
Furthermore, the region continues to experience high mortality, since while the global average is 13 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, in Latin America and the Caribbean it is 53 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.
In fact, this Friday it was known that the pandemic exceeded 75,000 deaths in Mexico, the fourth country with the most deaths from COVID-19 in the world, while the Government ensures that the outbreak has been declining for almost eight weeks.
Another disappointing mark was reported in the US, which surpassed 7 million cases of coronavirus this Friday, just two days after having exceeded the barrier of 200,000 deaths due to COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University.
In this way, the coronavirus has already killed more people in the United States than the total number of citizens of that country who died on the battlefield during the last five wars: the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Iraq War. , Afghanistan and the Gulf, in which 86,658 Americans lost their lives.
(Also: Google Maps will also report on coronavirus outbreaks)
Reopening pressure
Despite the numbers of infections and deaths, several countries continue their de-escalation process, in order to mitigate the expected devastating economic consequences.
That, precisely, was highlighted today by the president of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), Dante Mossi, who pointed out that the pandemic will cause an economic crisis in Central America “three times more intense” than that registered in 1998 by Hurricane Mitch.
(Pasture: Russia says it will supply Colombia with its drug against covid-19)
In this context, countries such as Peru continue to reopen and today announced that it will resume international air travel, initially to neighboring countries, as of October 5, after a six-month suspension due to the pandemic and as part of a fourth phase of reactivation, noting that the curve of hospitalized and deceased by the pandemic has begun to decrease since August.
While Brazil lifted the restrictions for the entry of foreigners into the country by air, although it maintained the prohibition for entry through land and waterways.
In the large cities of the region, activities have begun to reactivate.
Sebastiao Moreira. EFE
Get a vaccination
In the midst of their limited resources, the countries of the region have been linked to the vaccine development process, participating in clinical studies, and managing their adherence to the COVAX Mechanism, coordinated by WHO and which seeks to guarantee access to an eventual vaccine.
Among the most recent countries that confirmed their entry into the mechanism are Panama, Brazil, Mexico and Costa Rica.
In addition to its access to COVAX, the Brazilian Government also determined the release of resources for about 454.5 million dollars to participate in the program.
As for Costa Rica, which surpassed 70,000 confirmed positive cases and 800 deaths from the virus this Friday, the State must make a first advance payment of 6.3 million dollars, during October, to have access through COVAX to vaccines.
The WHO announced this week the initial list of 156 countries that have joined the COVAX network, in which, however, China and the United States are conspicuous by their absence.
Through COVAX, participating countries will be guaranteed initial doses to cover at least 3% of their population in the early stages of vaccine deployment, eventually reaching 20% of their population, enough to protect people most at risk of severe COVID-19.
(Further: What is Covax, the mechanism by which Colombia will have covid vaccines?)
EFE
