Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou announced new restrictive measures that will run until April 12 to contain the spread of Covid-19.
Public offices will be closed, except for essential services, and face-to-face learning for all levels of education will also be suspended. Clubs, gyms, amateur sports, public shows, parties and social events will also be suspended, and restaurants and bars will close at midnight. The free shops on the border with Brazil will also be closed, free shops where Brazilians shop to resell in their cities.
“If duty-free shops are a center (for risks), well, we close them,” the president of Uruguay told a news conference on Tuesday night.
Uruguay’s neighbor, Brazil, is one of the countries most affected by the pandemic, with overburdened intensive care units, cases on the rise and some essential medical supplies on the decline. It has the second highest number of cases and deaths of the virus, only surpassed by the United States.
The president also stated that the number of ICU beds in the country will be expanded with 35 additional beds for the private sector, 10 for the military hospital and 84 for the public sector.
“Stay in your bubble, stay with your close family,” said Lacalle.
Uruguay set a record for new cases and deaths on Monday, with 2,700 new cases and 19 new deaths. In addition, on Monday, health officials said 24 cases of the Brazilian variant P.1 were detected in the country. The country also broke a record on the same day for the number of active cases – 14,418 and a record for the number of ICU patients – 188.
On Tuesday, the country registered 1,801 new cases of the virus, totaling 86,007 since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the country’s health ministry. In addition, on Tuesday, 16 additional virus-related deaths were recorded, bringing the total number of deaths to 827.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) highlighted the increase in cases in Uruguay at its weekly news conference on Tuesday. PAHO’s Director, Dr. Carissa Etienne, said that Uruguay has reported more than 1,000 cases a day several times in the past few weeks, “which is alarming, given the size of the country.”
The current population of Uruguay is 3,482,469 as of March 24, 2021, based on the Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data.