Argentina is fighting health and economic crises as the COVID case escalates

Buenos Aires, Argentina – The streets of Buenos Aires are now crowded with people like Gabriel Martinez, who are looking for pieces of cardboard to turn into money in the days of the pandemic dogs.

Benjamin, a nine-year-old son, has his legs dangling from the edge of the cart as his father returns empty-handed from a pit stop at a gas station.

Martinez has been collecting cardboard since he was 19, and is now 34 years old.

She lives in the suburbs of the capital, but sleeps with her son in a room rented in a warehouse in Buenos Aires, where she sells truffled goods so she can start early and repeat tomorrow.

“It’s bad. Because there is nothing on the street. We walk for hours and hours, from five in the morning until midnight, “he says.” There are a lot more people trying to survive here. “

The tumultuous metropolis has been shut down again as Argentina tries to tame a second wave of COVID-19 that is worse than the first.

Last year, the country kept pollution relatively low in a tight blockade that lasted for months. The government allowed it to strengthen its health care system, but it beat the weak economy and had a severe emotional impact on society.

Now, one summer after quiet restrictions and new COVID variants, the number of infections and deaths has exploded exponentially.

‘System crashing’

Hospital units are overcrowded so that exhausted health workers can take and take measures that require warnings to stay away from people. In the province of Buenos Aires, the government has begun to generate its own oxygen to deal with the shortage.

Vaccine shipments are arriving, but as has happened in many Latin American countries, the campaign has been slow to move forward amid fierce global competition. About 20% of the population received the first shot.

“The system is collapsing,” Dr. Emmanuel Alvarez wrote in an open letter last month with the name “a desperate cry from the conurbano,” the capital’s high-density, working-class ring of municipalities.

More than 75,000 people have died of coronary heart disease in Argentina [Agustin Marcarian/Reuters]

“The collapse is our dead colleagues, who are intubating and getting out of the hands of younger patients between the ages of 30 and 50, the mutant strains that circulate, the largest number of children hospitalized,” he wrote.

“They’re ambulances standing at the doors of clinics, waiting for a bed that won’t arrive and an oxygen pipe that will run out … the dead are the dead in the houses, on the streets, breathless.”

Three weeks later, on May 19, Argentina registered 39,652 cases of COVID-19 every day. Since the start of the pandemic, the third country in South America has a population of 45 million, more than 3.6 million cases and more than 75,000 deaths.

“We are facing the worst moment that has happened since the pandemic began,” President Alberto Fernandez confirmed in a national speech announcing the new closure on May 20th. “The situation is very serious across the country.”

The quarantine is not as severe as in 2020. It allows people to drive near their home from 6am to 6pm to buy basic things or go for a walk. In some jurisdictions, shops and restaurants are open for service.

But all indoor or outdoor gatherings are prohibited: churches, entertainment venues and school buildings are closed.

Rising inflation

Meanwhile, the tension over health care and ensuring economic survival is as severe as ever in a country in this country. chronically high inflation – now it is 46 percent every year.

The economy fell 9.9 percent last year, according to Argentina’s National Institute of Statistics and Census. The number of people living below the poverty line has risen to 42 percent.

Mason Helius, 26, of Venezuela, explains how the butcher who works on Scalabrini Ortiz Avenue in Buenos Aires has survived.

The number of employees was reduced from seven to three; the days are extended to 14 hours and it is tied in a loft above the store. Sales, he said, have fallen by 50-60 percent.

“We have a restaurant that used to buy 90 pounds of small cows a month. Now, they weigh 15 pounds. 90 to 15 – that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sell either. If they don’t sell, neither do we, ”he says.

Mauricio Quiroz, his colleague, 48, is seen with contempt. He does not trust the official death toll and believes the government has collapsed. “They should stabilize the economy,” he says, among bondiola (a meat product) and customers who come to buy eggs.

Helius also questions the seriousness of the health crisis. “I hardly take care of myself. I move, I work and I don’t use sanitizing alcohol. I didn’t get COVID-19. Neither our wife nor mother are the ones who live with us. And I don’t know anyone who knows, ”he said. “Where are all the dead? I’m not going anywhere. “

Protests against the blockade

Distrust of official figures is one of the feelings that has driven people in cities across Argentina protests against quarantine May 25 – the day that marks the 1810 revolution that led to the country’s independence.

When face masks were avoided and orders to disperse were denied due to quarantine, a scandal broke out with several city police and led to arrests.

It was not the first protests of its kind here and it encouraged right-wing political opposition, preparing for the mid-term elections later this year and attacking the center-left Fernandez government over the administration of vaccines and restrictions.

A protester holds an Argentine flag in protest of Argentine President Alberto Fernandez’s measures to reduce the spread of coronavirus. [File: Agustin Marcarian/AP]

For Buenos Aires professor Angelica Graciano, the political debate has served to distract and negate the tragedy.

“There are no hospital beds available. We have already lost 18 colleagues and many more are in the hospital or in isolation, ”says Graciano, 60, and secretary general of the city’s largest teachers’ union in Buenos Aires.

As the number of cases of the return to the virtual model of education has been on the rise for weeks, the Fernandez government has also sought to impose something. But the Buenos Aires city government has maintained that keeping schools open is essential.

“Statistics are being used to eliminate man. A number turns you into something that is anonymous, ”says Graciana. “All life is valid and I am in favor of firm measures of isolation and the government providing the necessary financial support until we are all vaccinated. It is not a closure, but a protection of life.”

Miriam Zambrano, who lives in the southern province of Chubut, agrees. The retired nurse has seen how people left the guards when the vaccines began arriving in the city of Comodoro Rivadavia.

Hospitals have also been struggling there, and children in dire straits have had to be taken to Buenos Aires for treatment. Her seven-year-old grandson had the virus. “Poor little guy, he still can’t taste chocolate chip cookies,” Zambrano says.

“There hasn’t been a pandemic in less than 10 years, so it’s not a year or two or five,” he added. “We need to be at least 10 years old, and we need to learn how to take care of each other.”