News of virus

LITHIUM

Coronavirus halts lithium expansion in Argentina and Chile

23-05-2020 10:10 Projects under development halted and significant investments cancelled, as impact of Covid-19 pandemic begins to hit home.

by Fermin Koop

ARGENTINA CORONAVIRUS

Fears over Covid-19 in villas come to fruition with community leader's death

23-05-2020 09:13 Ramona Medina's death shines a light on the problems facing Argentina’s poorest amid the coronavirus pandemic, which is spreading more rapidly in low-income neighbourhoods.

THE LAST SEVEN DAYS

May 16th - May 23rd: What we learned this week

23-05-2020 08:59 Stories that caught our eye over the last seven days in Argentina.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

Economic activity fell 11.5% in March as lockdown kicked in

20-05-2020 18:12 INDEC national statistics bureau reveals economy contracted by 11.5% in March, as lockdown kicked in. Experts anticipate that April's data will be even worse.

Global pandemic

'This is war' – Virus charges beyond Latin American hot spots

19-05-2020 16:07 Coronavirus crisis threatens to overwhelm Latin American cities stretching from Chile to the Colombian Amazon, in an alarming sign that the pandemic may be only at the start of its destructive march through the region.

Global pandemic

Antarctica's splendid isolation keeps coronavirus at bay

19-05-2020 15:23 Antarctica remains the only Covid-19-free continent – thanks in the main to strict security and not a little luck.

Coronavirus pandemic

City of Córdoba resumes lockdown after virus cases spike

19-05-2020 15:20 Officials in provincial capital roll back easing of lockdown measures following a sharp spike in coronavirus infections, authorities confirm.

Global pandemic

Brazil jumps to third highest tally of Covid-19 cases worldwide

19-05-2020 14:24 Brazil has also registered 16,792 Covid-19 deaths, the sixth-highest toll in the world. Experts say under-testing means the real figure could be 15 times higher or more.

Global pandemic

The Argentine priest on the Covid-19 front line in New York

18-05-2020 23:20 Reverend Fabian Arias, from Buenos Aires, is a Lutheran pastor at Saint Peter’s Church in Manhattan. He has has performed funeral services 14 times in the last two months.

GLOBAL PANDEMIC

More than 300,000 fatalities from Coronavirus recorded to date

16-05-2020 09:20 Virus lockdowns ease in Europe as global hunt for vaccine heats up.

KEY STORIES

May 9th-16th: What we learned this week

16-05-2020 09:09 Stories that caught our eye in the last seven days.

EDITORIAL

Throwing stones from a glass house?

16-05-2020 08:57 The institutional monstrosity of allowing governments to choose anti-corruption officials entirely in the presidential (or vice-presidential) pocket puts both sides on the same sordid level.

MINISTRY POSITIONS

Culture suffering a vulture

16-05-2020 08:47 Few ministers are more clearly identified than Tristán Bauer with the vice-presidential rather than the presidential wing of the ruling coalition.

by Michael Soltys

WORLD THE PANDEMIC: GLOBAL VIEWS

New Pakistani ambassador waits to get to know his new home

16-05-2020 08:36 Buenos Aires has a new diplomat in town – but he’s stuck in the hotel. Pakistani Ambassador Dr Muhammad Khalid Ejaz arrived just days before Argentina entered its mandatory lockdown and, as he tells the Times, he’s eager to get to work and improve bilateral ties.

by James Grainger

Coronavirus pandemic

Infections spike in poverty-stricken Villa 31, worrying authorities

14-05-2020 15:55 Villa 31, one of Buenos Aires' poorest and most densely populated barrios, has shown a spike in the number of Covid-19 infections, worrying authorities hoping to ease the capital's two-month lockdown later this month.

DIEGO DONATES

Maradona autographs shirt to help poor during pandemic

09-05-2020 09:07 Maradona's signed jersey, which reads – “With all my heart and we are all going to get over this” – will be raffled among those who donate food for people at a working class neighbourhood called René Favaloro in José C. Paz.

WORLD FOOTBALL

Brazil takes tentative steps toward restarting football, unlike Argentina

09-05-2020 09:02 For once, officials in Argentina are adopting a sensible approach to a high-profile issue – unlike the country’s giant neighbour to the north.

by Dan Edwards

Coronavirus pandemic: Varados

Cabin fever: Argentine waitress 'distressed' by cruise ship confinement

07-05-2020 15:25 Argentine waitress Analia Navarrete has been shut up for almost a month inside a cabin on a luxury liner trapped at Lisbon port, thanks to the coronavirus epidemic.

Coronavirus conspiracy?

Trump backs theory Wuhan lab, US intelligence services less convinced

07-05-2020 13:08 Donald Trump says the evidence is clear, but intelligence agencies around the world – and even his own – are casting doubt on his theory.

Coronavirus pandemic

Argentina’s coronavirus death toll rises to 249

04-05-2020 13:53 Three new deaths from Covid-19 coronavirus were confirmed this morning by Health Ministry officials, bringing the total number of deaths from the pandemic to 249.

Bloomberg

Peru’s 35-year-old finance minister is suddenly a rock star

04-05-2020 13:49 Everyone calls her Toni. Mothers take selfies of her with their children, and street hawkers push bracelets into her hand as presents. TV networks vie for interviews and run profiles asking, “Who is Maria Antonieta Alva?”

AS I SEE IT

O brave new world

02-05-2020 11:45 If social distancing goes on for as long as the more hawkish epidemiologists recommend, it will be just as discriminatory as the virus.

by James Neilson

Coronavirus pandemic

Brazilians begin to lift quarantine as death toll spikes

30-04-2020 17:46 Brazilians are resuming a measure of normal life just as Covid-19 deaths are spiking to hundreds per day, turning their country into a global hotspot.

Coronavirus pandemic

Government bans selling of tickets for flights until September 1

27-04-2020 13:15 Commercial travel to, from and within Argentina effectively banned until September under new rules issued by National Administration of Civil Aviation.

Coronavirus pandemic

WHO warns over virus immunity as global death toll tops 200,000

26-04-2020 09:19 As the global death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 200,000 on Saturday, countries took cautious steps toward easing lockdowns imposed amid the pandemic, but fears of a surge in infections made even some outbreak-wounded businesses reluctant to reopen.

Coronavirus pandemic

More than 3,000 deaths from coronavirus in Brazil

24-04-2020 13:27 Most populous country in Latin America and the region's largest economy has now recorded 3,313 coronavirus deaths, out of a total 49,492 confirmed cases.

Coronavirus pandemic

More than 100,000 coronavirus infections in Latin America

21-04-2020 08:06 Based on official figures, Latin America as a whole had 100,952 cases on Sunday, with 4,924 deaths.

Coronavirus pandemic

UN urges world to quickly scale up medicines, vaccines

21-04-2020 07:36 Resolution calls on UN, WHO to ensure all people have equitable and timely access to testing, medical supplies, drugs and future vaccines, especially in developing countries.

Coronavirus pandemic

China pushes back on Trump administration coronavirus theory

17-04-2020 18:13 China is pushing back against President Donald Trump and some of his officials, who've flirted in recent days with an outlier theory that the coronavirus was set loose by a Chinese lab that let it escape.

Coronavirus pandemic

Argentina sends plane to pick up medical supplies in China

16-04-2020 15:08 Aerolíneas Argentinas announced Wednesday that the first in a series of flights to China had departed Buenos Aires, as part of a search for medical supplies to help tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

Coronavirus pandemic

Harvard researchers say social distancing may be needed into 2022

15-04-2020 09:35 People around the world might need to practice some level of social distancing intermittently through 2022 to stop Covid-19 from surging anew and overwhelming hospital systems, a group of Harvard disease researchers said Tuesday.

Coronavirus pandemic

Trump halts US funding to the World Health Organization

14-04-2020 23:52 Trump cuts off funding to the World Health Organisation in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, accusing the UN body of mishandling the crisis. Washington contributed US$400 million to the WHO last year.

A WEEK IN THE PANDEMIC

A long-haul plight

11-04-2020 10:28 Is anybody paying attention to Argentina’s debt drama with the entire world economy hurting so badly from a virus?

by Martín Gambarotta

Coronavirus pandemic

Scientists in Argentina decipher complete genome of SARS-Cov-2

08-04-2020 14:32 Work by ANLIS-Malbrán Institute specialists will allow experts to follow evolution of virus in Argentina, ensure quality of diagnosis and contribute to development of vaccine.

by Florencia Ballarino

Coronavirus pandemic

Coronavirus severs Brazilian Amazon off from rest of world

07-04-2020 16:53 Authorities in Amazonas state have restricted river traffic to essential travel, seeking to stop the spread of the virus in a region that could be particularly vulnerable to it.

Coronavirus pandemic

Latin America's biggest cemetery braces for impact

02-04-2020 18:10 Brazil's Vila Formosa cemetery, the largest in Latin America with an area of 780,000 square metres and where more than 1.5 million people are buried, has had a 30% increase in burials since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

CLEAR COMMUNICATIONS

Clear communication in times of crisis

31-03-2020 14:34 Flying home on one of the last repatriation flights back to Argentina, I realised just how important it is to communicate clearly in times of crisis.

by Joanna Richardson

Coronavirus pandemic

Race for vaccine tests limits of drug innovation

31-03-2020 12:44 From medical workers to the billions of people told to stay home to slow the pandemic, everyone is waiting for one thing: a vaccine for the novel Covid-19 coronavirus.

Coronavirus pandemic

President Fernández extends mandatory quarantine period until April 12

29-03-2020 22:55 Alberto Fernández praises citizens for complying with shutdown, announces "preventative and obligatory" quarantine period for all citizens will be extended until midnight on Sunday, April 12.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Dictatorship-era criminals request release from jail, citing virus risk

28-03-2020 10:15 More than 70 prisoners convicted of crimes against humanity have asked for house arrest, citing fears they will be infected by the novel Covid-19 coronavirus while behind bars.

by Luciana Bertoia

Social cost of shutdown

Report: Shutdown will hurt Argentina's poorest families more than virus

26-03-2020 18:03 Report by IDESA institute argues shutdown and paralysis of economic activity in Argentina will "produce greater social costs than those of illness."

BLOOMBERG - OPINION

Coronavirus thrives in Latin America’s multilateral vacuum

25-03-2020 15:47 Shutting down is part of the new global normal. The danger in Latin America is that such sweeping measures feed the tempting illusion that walls, wilfulness and nativism are the way to beat a threat that is already ubiquitous.

by Mac Margolis

NUNCA MÁS

Quarantined Argentines use balconies, networks to remember 1976 coup

24-03-2020 16:51 Today marks the anniversary of the 1976 military coup, but with a mandatory quarantine in place to help contain the spread of the coronavirus, Argentines are finding other ways to mark the day.

Coronavirus pandemic

Coronavirus in Argentina: Worst yet to come, quarantine may be extended

24-03-2020 12:03 Extension of nationwide lockdown is "a possibility" admits President Fernández, as experts warn the number of confirmed cases will double or treble in the coming weeks as testing is decentralised.

Love in the time of coronavirus

Argentina couple defy coronavirus to hold virtual wedding

24-03-2020 10:18 When Diego and Sofia got engaged to be married a year ago, they set a date in March 2020 – but like countless others across the globe, their wedding fell victim to the coronavirus lockdown.

Coronavirus pandemic

Health Ministry confirms first cases of ‘community transmission’ in Argentina

23-03-2020 16:12 Novel coronavirus is spreading via "community transmission" in CABA, its surroundings and "some cities in Chaco, Tierra del Fuego and Córdoba" provinces, says Health Access Secretary Carla Vizzotti.

Coronavirus pandemic

Italy's daily virus deaths climb to nearly 800

21-03-2020 18:34 Italy on Saturday reported nearly 800 coronavirus deaths and saw its toll for the past month reach 4,825 – well over a third of the world's total.

CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

Government pledges financial support for low-income sectors

21-03-2020 08:02 The government announced on Tuesday six new measures to diminish the economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis for the lowestincome sectors.

NATIONWIDE LOCKDOWN

Argentina begins unprecedented nationwide lockdown

21-03-2020 07:52 Argentina awakes to new reality, as Alberto Fernández announces “preventative and compulsory” lockdown of Argentina until March 31 in bid to stop the spread of coronavirus.

Pandemic Outbreak

Africa, Latin America fragile targets for coronavirus spread

20-03-2020 14:37 With the coronavirus now moving into parts of the world that are the least prepared, countries are grappling with limited ventilators, healthcare workers, and ICU beds.