Latin America begins the year hit by the pandemic of COVID-19, due to the spread of the new omicron variant.
The region, which It became a major focus of the pandemic, currently accounting for 17% of global infections and 45% of continental ones.
The Latin American countries with the most infections are Brazil, third in the world, with some 22.3 million cases, Argentina (5.6 million) and Colombia (5.1 million).
In Ecuador there is a particular concern, since it closed December tripling the number of coronavirus cases.
The Ministry of Public Health of that country reported that, as of Monday, the application of the reinforcement against COVID-19 to the population between 50 and 59 years old begins.
In Peru, the alarm grows due to the third wave of COVID-19 cases. As reported by the National Institute of Health, 7.6% of total infections correspond to the new omicron variant.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador acknowledged this Monday in his morning conference that the omicron is increasing infections in Mexico. “Advancement, because I have the daily report, that the infections by this new variant are increasing,” he said.
However, he clarified that hospitalizations have not increased and that despite the rise in cases, “there are no deaths.”
On Monday, Spanish President Pedro Sánchez reiterated, through his Twitter account, that “Spain will continue to support Colombia, and Latin America, in the face of the pandemic.”
This, in connection with the gratitude that the Colombian president, Iván Duque, made public on his social networks for “the donation of more than 5.4 million doses of Pfizer, by the Spanish Government, through the COVAX mechanism.”
In Colombia, the Ministry of Health confirmed at the end of last week that due to “the current epidemiological conditions, what is being reported from the health services, as well as the type of clinical picture that the people who are going to the hospitals, indicate the probability -high- of entering a peak “.
In Latin America, Chile ranks first in omicron cases, followed by Mexico, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Argentina, French Guiana, Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru, according to figures from the global virus sequencing platform Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID).
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