In Bolivia, bodies are accumulating in homes and on the streets again, echoing the horrific images of last summer, when a deadly increase in coronavirus infections hit the country’s fragile medical system. Bolivian police say in January they recovered 170 bodies of people who allegedly died from Covid-19, and health officials say the intensive care units are full.
“When 10 or 20 patients die, their beds are full again in a few hours,” said Carlos Hurtado, a public health epidemiologist in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s largest city.
The resurgence of the virus in Bolivia is part of a second major wave across Latin America, where some of the world’s toughest quarantine measures are giving way to pandemic fatigue and economic concerns.
The International Monetary Fund said on Monday that it was revising its 2021 growth forecast for Latin America and the Caribbean from 3.6% to 4.1%. Warning that the increase in cases could threaten an economic recovery that is expected to take longer than in other parts of the world, the fund predicted that regional production will not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2023.
While the number of new cases is falling, deaths remain at almost record levels in many parts of the region, as soon as some governments initiate vaccination efforts.
Brazil and Mexico have averaged 1,000 daily deaths from Covid-19 for weeks; its total number of pandemic deaths is now surpassed only by that of the United States. Deaths in Brazil corresponded to the peak of summer, while in Mexico they are much higher than at any previous peak, although they have started to fall in recent days.
In Bolivia last summer, the death figures revised by The New York Times suggested that the actual death toll in the country was almost five times the official record, indicating that Bolivia had suffered one of the worst epidemics in the world. About 20,000 people died from June to August than in previous years, according to an analysis by the Times – a large number in a country of about 11 million people.
Bolivia now reports an average of 60 coronavirus deaths per day, approaching last summer’s figures. Experts believe that the highest mortality rate is caused by the most contagious variants of the virus originating in neighboring Brazil and elsewhere, but they lack the tools to analyze the virus’s genetic code.
Despite the increased death rate, Bolivian authorities have not implemented the quarantine measures used to help contain the first wave of the virus a year ago. Officials from Bolivia and other Latin American countries are promoting their nascent vaccination programs as a reason to avoid blockages, although few countries in the region other than Brazil have acquired a significant number of doses.
Only 20,000 doses of vaccine have arrived in Bolivia, although the government says it plans to vaccinate eight million people by September.
In other global developments:
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More cases linked to a quarantine hotel in Victoria, Australia, were reported on Tuesday as an employee and a returning traveler tested positive for the virus. The traveler had completed her quarantine period, making her the second person this week to test positive after leaving an installation.
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Starting next week, travelers returning to Great Britain of countries where virus variants are widespread will have to pay 1,750 pounds ($ 2,410) for a 10-day quarantine at a hotel, officials said on Tuesday. Those who lie about where they are can face up to 10 years in prison, said Britain’s health secretary, Matt Hancock. The list of affected countries includes Portugal, as well as most of South America and Southern Africa.
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A “very small number” of British soldiers inside Kenya tested positive in an outbreak at a training camp, the British Ministry of Defense said. The camp, about 120 miles north of the capital, Nairobi, has about 100 permanent employees and about 280 entering and leaving, according to the British military. The base closed last year, but reopened last month.
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Greece is closing schools in Athens again, and increasing other restrictions, because of the increase in new cases in the capital, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Tuesday. Mitsotakis called on the Greeks to “remain united”, despite their frustration with the country’s second blockade, imposed in early November. Athens schools were reopened last month. Most of the country’s retail stores will remain closed, and the curfew in the capital and other major cities was extended last week.
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SpainThe company’s regional blocks are being challenged in court. On Tuesday, the Basque region’s highest court overturned an order by authorities to close the region’s bars and restaurants, following legal action by an industry association. In its decision, the Regional Supreme Court stated that, as long as there are limits to social distance, being inside an establishment “does not appear at this moment as an element of serious and certain risk to public health”. On Tuesday, Spain reached 3 million registered cases of coronavirus and its highest number of daily deaths since the first wave of the pandemic, with 766 deaths reported overnight by the health ministry.