(en) Coronavirus: Health versus Economy
(Victoria Herrera/Lic. Política y Relaciones Internacionales)
While the number of cases and deaths grows exponentially in Latin American countries such as Brazil or Mexico where the deaths of the virus number in the tens of thousands of people, and the region has become the epicenter of the pandemic, Argentina, like that its neighbor Uruguay keep the pandemic at bay. According to the Ipsos study, they are the countries that best managed the COVID-19 crisis.
The achievement is due to various strategies taken by the government such as speed and consensus. Argentina acted early and fast, and its political class in general reached a consensus regarding sanitary measures. On March 5, 2020, the first case of coronavirus was detected in Argentina and the following week, the country declared a health emergency: borders were closed, flights, classes, religious services were suspended, and public events such as soccer tournaments and concerts. Unlike many countries where the pandemic has become a subject of strong political dispute, in general Argentine political parties supported the government’s sanitary and economic measures. We were able to witness this at all the press conferences held by the nation’s president, who does it together with the Head of Government of the City of Buenos Aires (opposition party) and the Governor of the province of Buenos Aires, thus achieving a single message to all citizens regardless of their political alignment.
Undoubtedly, one of the key measures that has served to contain the pandemic is “social, preventive and compulsory isolation” and rapid tests with the Strategic Test Device Detector, which performs a house-to-house search of close contacts of confirmed cases, and of all people with symptoms compatible with COVID 2019. To date, the WHO reports 90,693 confirmed cases and 1,749 deaths since its first case in the Republic of Argentina.
Although we mention that the strategy implemented by the government has been quite favorable in its results, several questions arise: Does health still prevail over the labor, social and economic crisis? Are we facing too long and strict confinement?
The answer to these two questions is yes. The Argentine Government has prevailed health over the labor, social and economic crisis. A more extensive and stringent quarantine than that of Wuhan has been implemented, now exceeding 100 days.
Finally, the reality is that today we do not have an exact date or the successful guarantee of a vaccine that eliminates the virus, which leads us to understand that we must learn to live with the pandemic by following all the established measures, thus creating social responsibility, and this is accompanied by a good plan of de-escalation of the confinement in phases that helps at the health and economic level.
