COVID: Argentina in sixth place

antipodean

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Argentina surpasses Spain and is now in the sixth place globally in terms of total cases. Argentina certainly is not the sixth biggest country in the world in terms of population which makes this honor quite the feat - up there along with USA (328m), Brazil (280m), India(1,3bn), Russia (144m) and Colombia (50m) The 14 day averages paint an even worse prognosis.

The government have announced a tightening of the quarantine in most provinces. Although CABA was included in the list, I don’t understand how anything actually changes since from Monday more things will be allowed again including domestic employees and outdoor cultural events for up to 300 people. Hence don’t understand what it means for people on the interior? The announcement seemed vague on details of the new measures to expect...?

Naturally I’m going to take the opportunity to again say / remind people that a failure of this scale should not go unanswered given the huge public costs involved to date through failed and extended policies. In any sane country there would be an enquiry and those responsible for the disproportionate tolls would be out of the job.
 
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And the biggest political winner of this all was....Bolsonaro. Brazilians are seeing the plight here and most are grateful that the country did not follow the same path.


His anger, the cursing, the indignation, all resonates well with folks who are hungry, jobless and penniless because of the local lockdowns.
And remember, this is a private meeting with his ministers. This video was not supposed to be made public. It only happened because the opposition sued to have the video released.
So the population is seeing an authentic Bolsonaro truly angry about their plight and demanding action. I cannot overstate what a political victory this is for him, specially when Brazilians looks at the situation in Argentina.
 
Hmmm this video was in the very first weeks of the virus and something seen in a lot of countries in some form or another. It does not represent the reality in CABA for some months now.

Unfortunately I don’t see Brazil as a shining example of how to handle COVID either, together with Argentina it’s kind of like dumb and dumber. Just a different kind of dumb. But I do agree how the experience in Argentina serves political rhetoric in Brazil.

Given a “small” and largely sparse population Argentina has had ample opportunity to buck the trend through testing, tracing and sensible, targeted and limited social distancing measures as has worked in most countries on earth to maintain balance between economic well-being and keeping people as healthy as possible. Here however the charts just keep going up with no respite or lull in sight.
 
Yes the interior was locked down in support of Buenos Aires. Now the Buenos Aires opens up yet the interior remains locked down.

I'm afraid of normalcy returning to the city while the rest of the country is forgot about.
 
Unfortunately I don’t see Brazil as a shining example of how to handle COVID either,

I never said it was. But politically speaking, Bolsonaro came out as the big winner and the Argentinian fiasco made him look even better.
 
And the biggest political winner of this all was....Bolsonaro. Brazilians are seeing the plight here and most are grateful that the country did not follow the same path.


His anger, the cursing, the indignation, all resonates well with folks who are hungry, jobless and penniless because of the local lockdowns.
And remember, this is a private meeting with his ministers. This video was not supposed to be made public. It only happened because the opposition sued to have the video released.
So the population is seeing an authentic Bolsonaro truly angry about their plight and demanding action. I cannot overstate what a political victory this is for him, specially when Brazilians looks at the situation in Argentina.

His "victory" isn't going to last very long since Brazil can no longer afford the handouts he's been giving people during the pandemic. It still seems strange that a Neoliberal like him would have resorted to a socialist policy to save himself politically. What's he going to do when Brazil gets a second wave?

 
His "victory" isn't going to last very long since Brazil can no longer afford the handouts he's been giving people during the pandemic. It still seems strange that a Neoliberal like him would have resorted to a socialist policy to save himself politically. What's he going to do when Brazil gets a second wave?

It will always depend on how is the country is doing versus Argentina. If Lula becomes a candidate to run against him and the economic situation in Argentina remains worse than in brazil, he can always point South and say, "vote for Lula and we shall become the next Argentina".

Also, he was never a neoliberal. He was always highly nationalistic and heavily into protectionism. He actually voted for Lula in 2002, because he did not want the "neo-liberals" to take over the country. As a representative, he voted against every privatization, labor reform or pension reform that the "neo-liberals" tried to pass.
He transformation into a "neo-liberal" was highly opportunistic and only happened 6 months prior to the election. He is a typical Latin American populist and has a lot more in common with Lula than most people realize.
 
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Yes the interior was locked down in support of Buenos Aires. Now the Buenos Aires opens up yet the interior remains locked down.

I'm afraid of normalcy returning to the city while the rest of the country is forgot about.
Maybe you should wish to be forgotten about...
If the central government had its way in the city, we would not be back to normal and our cases would still be going up. Hell we probably wouldn’t even be allowed out for exercise...
Here our cases are going down yet the only thing we are really missing are schools, nightclubs and indoor malls.
 
Hmmm this video was in the very first weeks of the virus and something seen in a lot of countries in some form or another. It does not represent the reality in CABA for some months now.

Unfortunately I don’t see Brazil as a shining example of how to handle COVID either, together with Argentina it’s kind of like dumb and dumber. Just a different kind of dumb. But I do agree how the experience in Argentina serves political rhetoric in Brazil.

Given a “small” and largely sparse population Argentina has had ample opportunity to buck the trend through testing, tracing and sensible, targeted and limited social distancing measures as has worked in most countries on earth to maintain balance between economic well-being and keeping people as healthy as possible. Here however the charts just keep going up with no respite or lull in sight.

It's hard to fathom why Argentina is behind even Venezuela in total number tests per 1M. Additinally, despite having a smaller population, Peru has has tested nearly twice as many people. This goes beyond a policy failure. Either this country's health care system has been in bad shape for a very long time, or the numbers are simply bogus. Perhaps both.
 
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