(Buenos Aires) More than 1,300 heavy goods vehicles from Argentina were blocked on Tuesday at the main border crossing with Chile, in the Andes, due to systematic COVID-19 screening tests carried out on truck drivers, said -we learned from the carriers.
Posted at 7:22 p.m.
The blockage at the Paso Cristo Redentor post, at an altitude of more than 3,100 m – which usually sees 900 trucks pass by per day – began two days ago, when the Chilean authorities reinforced their health checks, with antigen tests becoming systematic, indicated the Argentine Federation of Road Freight (FADEEAC).
“We have lost count of the blocked trucks, because the places where they park [à la frontière] are taken, so they park before arriving”, even before the province of Mendoza where the border post is located. “We are talking about 1,800 to 2,000 trucks” immobilized in total, said Daniel Gallart, president of Aprocam, the association of truck owners in Mendoza.
The trucks come “from all over Mercosur (Common Market of South America), about 50% Argentinian, 30% Brazilian”, according to the usual statistics at this crossing, he added.
“These delays are due to the antigen tests carried out on all the drivers who enter Chile, and because the rest of the services work in small teams”, explained to the Argentine agency Telam the commander of the gendarmerie Justo José Báscolo, coordinator of the station. Cristo Redentor.
The reinforced controls follow the opening in early January of several border crossings between Chile and Argentina, to welcome Argentine summer tourists whose test at the border also contributes to delays.
“We do not question the sovereign decision of a country” to strengthen the tests, “we are not against testing the drivers”, declared in a press release the FADEEAC, which nevertheless calls for more means to ” speed up the process.
According to Mr. Gallart, the passage is “in practice, cut”, “at some point it will affect the supply chains” and cause losses in the order of millions of dollars, between costs in the ports on the Pacific, cost of goods, and driver hours.
FADEEAC approached the Argentine Foreign and Transport Ministries to ask them to intervene.
Argentina and Chile both have high vaccination rates (over 75% and 88% at two doses), but Argentina is facing a record wave of contamination, with around 120,000 new cases per day.