In Bolivia, bodies are piling up again at homes and on the streets, reflecting the gruesome images of last summer, when a deadly surge in coronavirus infections overwhelmed the country’s fragile medical system. Bolivian police say they recovered 170 bodies of people suspected of dying from Covid-19 in January, and health officials say intensive care units are full.
“When 10 or 20 patients die, their beds are full again in a matter of hours,” said Carlos Hurtado, an epidemiologist for public health in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s largest city.
The revival of the virus in Bolivia is part of a larger second wave in Latin America, where some of the world’s most stringent 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 to 4.1 percent from 3.6 percent. The fund warned that the increase could in some cases threaten an economic recovery that is expected to last longer than in other parts of the world, and the forecast of regional production will not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2023.
While the number of new cases is declining, deaths in many parts of the region remain near record highs, just as some governments are starting vaccinations.
Brazil and Mexico each take more than 1,000 deaths a day each week in Covid-19; their total death toll on pandemic is now only surpassed by the United States. Deaths in Brazil correspond to their summer peak, while in Mexico it is much higher than any previous peak, although it has started to decline over the past few days.
Last summer in Bolivia, death rates reviewed by The New York Times suggested that the country’s actual death toll was nearly five times the official count, indicating that Bolivia had suffered one of the worst epidemics in the world. About 20,000 more people died from June to August than in recent years, according to a Times analysis – a large number in a country of about 11 million people.
Bolivia now reports an average of 60 deaths a year from coronavirus, approaching last summer’s numbers. Experts believe the higher mortality rate is caused by the more contagious virus variants emerging in the surrounding Brazil and elsewhere, but they do not have the tools to analyze the virus’ genetic code.
Despite the rising death toll, Bolivian authorities have not imposed quarantine measures to combat the virus’ first wave a year ago. Officials in Bolivia and other Latin American countries cite their emerging vaccination programs as a reason to prevent outbreaks, although few countries in the region outside Brazil have received a significant amount 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 issues related to a quarantine hotel in Victoria, Australia, was reported Tuesday as an employee and returning travelers both tested positive for the virus. The traveler completed her quarantine period, making her the second person to test positive this week after leaving a facility.
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From next week, travelers returning to Britain from countries where the variants of the virus are widespread, they have to pay £ 2,750 for a ten-day hotel quarantine, authorities said on Tuesday. Those who lie where they were could face up to ten years in prison, British Secretary Matt Hancock said. The list of countries affected includes Portugal, as well as most of South America and southern Africa.
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A “very small number” of British soldiers in Kenya tested positive in an outbreak at a training camp, the British Ministry of Defense said. According to the British military, about 100 kilometers north of the capital, Nairobi, has about 100 permanent employees and about 280 who rotate in and out. The base closed last year, but reopen last month.
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Greece closes schools in Athens and tightens other restrictions due to an increase in new business in the capital, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Tuesday. Mitsotakis called on the Greeks to “stay united” despite their frustration over an exclusion, the second country, which was imposed in early November. The Athens schools reopened last month. Most stores in the country will remain closed, and an evening clock in the capital and other major cities was extended last week.
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Spain‘s local locks are disputed in court. The highest court in the Basque region on Tuesday annulled an order from the authorities to close the pubs and restaurants in the region after legal action by a trade association. The regional Supreme Court said in its ruling that as long as there are social distance boundaries, being within an institution ‘is not currently an element of serious and certain risks to public health.’ On Tuesday, Spain reached 3 million registered cases of coronavirus and its highest daily death toll since the first wave of the pandemic, with 766 deaths reported by the Ministry of Health overnight.