America reported 437,000 new cases of coronavirus on Friday, the second worst daily figure in the pandemic, bringing the total to 37 million sick, a high price the continent began to pay after the Christmas and New Year celebrations.
In the world, the cases have reached 86,400,000 today, after 735,000 recent infections were recorded in the last 24 hours, most of them in America.
As for deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) puts them at 900,000 on that continent after 7,200 this Friday.
This new wave of infections is predicted by health authorities and are the result of crowds in the trade for Christmas shopping and family reunions on New Year’s Eve.
This upward curve of cases affects mainly the United States, which has 21 million patients and where vaccination is progressing slowly.
Precisely, US President-elect Joe Biden said on Friday that his administration will distribute all available doses of vaccine immediately.
“Vaccines give us hope, but distribution has been nonsense,” Biden said at an event in Wilmington, Delaware.
Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s leading infectious disease expert, said the United States could reach one million inoculations a day, bringing the figure to 80 percent in June 2022 alone. the country population would receive immunization.
Brazil has eight million infected
Brazil, the second country most affected in America by the pandemic, recorded 52,035 new cases of Covid in the last 24 hours, surpassing the mark of eight million infections.
The South American giant also reported 962 new deaths.
Thus, since the first case of the disease was presented, on February 26 last year and the first death on March 12, Brazil has accumulated 201,406 deaths from coronavirus and 8,013,708 infections.
The increase in deaths and infections occurs at a time when Brazil still has not set a date for the start of the vaccination campaign, although Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said it could begin next. January 20th.
In fact, the National Agency for Health Surveillance (Anvisa), the regulator of Brazil, has already received the order for emergency use of the vaccine developed in the country by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac together with the Brazilian Institute Butantan.
The application was submitted by the Butantan Institute after the Government of Sao Paulo, on which the research center depends, announced on the eve that studies conducted with volunteers in the country showed that this vaccine has an effectiveness of the ‘78%.
Also, the state Foundation Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) requested permission to use for emergency reasons two million doses of the vaccine from the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
Alarm in Colombia
Latin America is concerned about the case of Colombia, which today added 18,221 new cases of covid-19, its second consecutive record, which raised to 1,755,568 the number of people who have contracted the disease since it was reported. first infection on March 6, 2020.
In addition to the high number of infections, the Ministry of Health noted that there were 364 deaths, the highest number since September 1 when the country had 389 deaths.
As a result of this rise, the Colombian capital, Bogota, is on red alert, with trade closed and relatively low traffic of people and cars.
With the ICU beds occupied by more than 85% and almost a third of the total cases of the disease, the mayor of Bogota, Claudia López, declared yesterday the red alert, as well as the total restriction of mobility from midnight on Thursday to four in the morning on January 12.
Other Colombian cities, such as Medellin, the second most important, Cali, Cartagena, Ibagué and Bucaramanga, also took measures to prevent mass displacement during this weekend that celebrates the festive bridge of Kings and thus prevent infections.
Restrictions on Argentina and Mexico
To curb the rise of covid-19 during the summer, the Argentine government issued a decree on Friday calling on provincial governors to restrict night traffic if required by the epidemiological situation, 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 the Executive of Alberto Fernández occurs in a context of sharp increase in the contagion curve in the summer season.
This is attributed to the greater neglect of society to the measures of distancing, with full beaches and clandestine parties, but also to the echoes that left mass rallies such as the vigil of Diego Armando Maradona in late November and demonstrations around of the abortion law less than two weeks ago.
Similarly, Mexico City will keep non-essential activities closed until at least January 15 to slow the progress of the covid-19 even though the announced closing period ended this Sunday, the head said of Government, Claudia Sheinbaum.
The official described as “indispensable to maintain the situation of reduced mobility” in the capital with a second total closure that started on December 19.
The capital is the main red focus of the pandemic in the country as it has accumulated more than 354,000 infections and nearly 23,000 deaths from covid-19, while Mexico is close to 1.5 million cases and has more than 131,000 deaths.
In addition, hospital occupancy in Mexico City is 86%, an identical percentage for both general hospital and intubation beds.