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Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2...ealth-and-economic-crises-as-covid-cases-soar
Argentina battles health and economic crises as COVID cases soar
Coronavirus infections and deaths have surged in the South American nation amid a low vaccination rate.
By Natalie Alcoba
27 May 2021
Buenos Aires, Argentina – The streets of Buenos Aires belong to people like Gabriel Martinez these days, as he searches high and low for scrap pieces of cardboard to turn into cash in the dog days of the pandemic.
His nine-year-old son, Benjamin, dangles his legs over the edge of the cart, as his father returns empty-handed from a pit stop at a gas station.
Martinez has been collecting cardboard for a living since he was 19, and now he is 34.
He lives in the suburbs of the capital city, but he will sleep with his son, in a room they rent in the Buenos Aires depot where he sells his trove of scavenged goods, so that they can start early and repeat tomorrow.
“It’s bad. Because there’s nothing on the streets. We walk for hours and hours, from five in the morning until midnight,” he says. “There are a lot more people trying to survive out here now.”
The roaring metropolis has been muffled again as Argentina tries to tame a second wave of COVID-19 that is worse than the first.
Last year, the country kept contagion relatively low in a strict lockdown that dragged on for months. It allowed the government to bolster its healthcare system, but battered a weak economy and took a harsh emotional toll on society.
Now, following a summer of relaxed restrictions and new COVID variants, the number of infections and deaths have exploded exponentially.
‘The system is collapsing’
Hospital units are overflowing as exhausted healthcare workers plead with the public to heed warnings of distancing and to take precautions. In the province of Buenos Aires, the government has started producing its own oxygen to confront a looming shortage.
Vaccine shipments are arriving, but as with many countries in Latin America, the campaign was slow to get going amid fierce global competition. Some 20 percent of the population have received their first shot...
Argentina battles health and economic crises as COVID cases soar
Coronavirus infections and deaths have surged in the South American nation amid a low vaccination rate.
By Natalie Alcoba
27 May 2021
Buenos Aires, Argentina – The streets of Buenos Aires belong to people like Gabriel Martinez these days, as he searches high and low for scrap pieces of cardboard to turn into cash in the dog days of the pandemic.
His nine-year-old son, Benjamin, dangles his legs over the edge of the cart, as his father returns empty-handed from a pit stop at a gas station.
Martinez has been collecting cardboard for a living since he was 19, and now he is 34.
He lives in the suburbs of the capital city, but he will sleep with his son, in a room they rent in the Buenos Aires depot where he sells his trove of scavenged goods, so that they can start early and repeat tomorrow.
“It’s bad. Because there’s nothing on the streets. We walk for hours and hours, from five in the morning until midnight,” he says. “There are a lot more people trying to survive out here now.”
The roaring metropolis has been muffled again as Argentina tries to tame a second wave of COVID-19 that is worse than the first.
Last year, the country kept contagion relatively low in a strict lockdown that dragged on for months. It allowed the government to bolster its healthcare system, but battered a weak economy and took a harsh emotional toll on society.
Now, following a summer of relaxed restrictions and new COVID variants, the number of infections and deaths have exploded exponentially.
‘The system is collapsing’
Hospital units are overflowing as exhausted healthcare workers plead with the public to heed warnings of distancing and to take precautions. In the province of Buenos Aires, the government has started producing its own oxygen to confront a looming shortage.
Vaccine shipments are arriving, but as with many countries in Latin America, the campaign was slow to get going amid fierce global competition. Some 20 percent of the population have received their first shot...