After having returned to a vibrant nightlife in recent months, Buenos Aires is once again at a standstill. Since April 16 and until the end of the month, the capital and its greater region (a third of the 45 million Argentines) are subject to a series of restrictive measures, intended to stem the skyrocketing of Covid cases. 19: a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., the closure of schools and the suspension of recreational, religious, social and sports activities indoors. “All I want is to protect the health of Argentines”, said President Alberto Fernandez (center left), during these announcements on April 14, as he completed his isolation, after contracting a non-serious form of Covid-19.
The previous week, the government had already decreed the ban on private meetings at home, in regions where the virus is circulating intensely. “The central problem is the social gatherings where people relax”, said the president while in recent days the region of Buenos Aires, where the majority of infections are currently concentrated, offered an astonishing paradox: some restaurants or cafes were overflowing with customers inside, at a time when the contamination records s ‘accumulated.
Friday, April 16, a new threshold was crossed with 29,472 cases recorded in twenty-four hours, as the southern hemisphere sinks into autumn and winter, seasons favorable to the spread of respiratory viruses. “It’s not a wave, it’s a tsunami”, said Axel Kicillof, governor of the province of Buenos Aires (center left), the region that houses the great outskirts of the capital. More than 59,000 Argentines have already lost their lives after contracting Covid-19.
If the authorities speak readily of “second wave”, the curves show a third upsurge of the virus and, unlike other countries, they have never been characterized by real phases of flattening. “The previous increase took place during the summer, in January, after the end of the year holidays were relaxed. This time, the situation is very critical and the duplication time much faster than last year ”, alarmed Victor Romanowski, biologist and researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet) and member ad honorem of the scientific committee advising the province of Buenos Aires. “We can then note an acceleration since the opening of schools in March, due, among other things, to the trips it generates. The rate of contamination of 10-19 year olds is higher than in the rest of the population ”, argues the scientist who estimates that “The government took too long to react”.
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