(Mar del Plata) COVID-19 cases are exploding in Argentina, but youth are having a blast on the coast. The austral summer of 2021 presents the singular landscape of record statistics and a measured response from the authorities who assume not to tighten the screw.
Posted at 4:56 p.m.
Mar del Plata, its crowded beaches, its bars, its nights. About 650,000 inhabitants year-round, up to 3.5 million tourists from December to February, according to the latest pre-pandemic figures. It is THE summer destination for Argentines, especially Buenos Aires, on the first truly oceanic coast, 400 km from the capital.
On a musical background of tenacious techno or Latin bass, near the complex of bars-clubs of La Normandina overlooking the Atlantic, Renata, Lara and Pilar giggle at the mention of preventive measures: “This is Mar del Plata, COVID-19 does not exist! It’s full of people, everything young people want! »
Masks ? ” At the entrance [en boîte] they ask for it. Afterwards, inside, it’s unmanageable, ”analyzes Andrès Gazzola, a medical student from Rosario, who understands recklessness. “After two years of the pandemic, it’s like revenge. People let go. They need to have fun, to live”. Especially since he has a presentiment of it: “COVID-19 is coming to an end”.
” The mess ”
Argentina experienced strict confinement in 2020 for more than five months, took the time before reopening its schools in 2021, not its universities, as well as its borders, from November.
But in Mar del Plata the masks are rare in the middle of the compact crowds around a sound system placed on the sand or in the “boliches” (boxes). “It’s a mess. In truth, there are no masks, there is nothing… But hey, we knew where we were coming from and what we were exposing ourselves to, ”smiles Ariel Gill, in his thirties, shirtless. “And then we stay with friends, in our ‘bubble’,” he says.
The “bubbles” of Mar del Plata overflow a little on the test center, a short distance from flip flops, but with several hours of waiting. Last week, the average of positive cases in Mar del Plata exceeded 60% – more than 80% in other resorts in this seaside conurbation – for 50% at the national level.
Argentina has been experiencing an explosion in the number of new COVID-19 cases for the past month, in the wake of European countries, with almost every day a record broken since the start of the pandemic: 128,000 new cases again on Wednesday, more than 20 times more than mid-December.
But faced with a COVID-19 mortality which remains low (around 50 deaths per day, against 400-500 in May-June at the most dramatic of the pandemic), faced with a relative occupation of intensive care (39.5%), also faced with a notable vaccination zeal (74% with two doses, 18% with booster including 40% of over 60s), the government has chosen not to panic.
And evokes like the Minister of Health Carla Vizzotti a “paradigm shift” in the face of COVID-19.
“Infected, but quiet”
“Rather than intensive care beds, what concerns us is absenteeism at work”, says the minister of a government which ardently needs not to slow down the oxygen of an economic recovery (10% growth expected in 2021) coming after three years of recession. And, of course, not to depopulate “essential services” by isolation which would be over-cautious.
Hence, a few days ago, the decision to further relax the isolation measures. No more isolation for vaccinated asymptomatic contact cases. The quarantine period for positive cases had previously been reduced.
We do not yet say “endemic” instead of “pandemic”, but we are getting closer.
Hence, also, the campaign to promote the summer season, to revive economic activity, which saw the government seal an agreement with the hotel and tourism sectors for a price freeze for the southern summer. Boost, consume, and maintain inflation set at 50.9% for 2021.
In Mar del Plata, young people have received the message well, and the summer will therefore be hot. They say to themselves “I’m going to the beach, for sure I’m going to be infected, but I’m calm because I’m vaccinated and this disease is not serious”, analyzes Patricia Bogdanowicz, pediatric infectious disease specialist at the hospital. -San Martin school in Buenos Aires.
“What they do not understand is that the entire productive apparatus, the health services, are on edge because of contamination and isolation”.