Deadliest day in Argentina as COVID-19 kills 153
Buenos Aires, Jul 30 (efe-epa).- Argentina suffered its deadliest day in the COVID-19 epidemic Thursday with 153 deaths across the country and 6,377 new positive cases, both record daily highs.
These figures brought the total number of deaths to 3,441 and cases to 185,373, of which 80,596 have been discharged.
The main focus of infections continues in Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA), formed by the capital and its populous urban cordon, which belongs to the province of Buenos Aires and has a high population density.
The province of Buenos Aires stands out well above the rest of the Argentine administrative jurisdictions in terms of new infections (4,415) and deaths in the last 24 hours, since it registered 116 of the total fatalities.
Behind it was the capital, which recorded 1,239 infections and mourned 32 fatalities.
In addition, there were deaths in the provinces of Río Negro with two, and one each in Córdoba, Mendoza and Santa Cruz.
Beyond AMBA, the outbreaks of the northern Jujuy, which Thursday reported 161 cases, Chaco, which added 93 to its records, and Córdoba, which reported 91 infections, continue to strengthen.
Community transmission accounts for 54.4 percent of the cases in the South American country, and Thursday 100,000 infections were exceeded due to this type.
Currently, 64.5 percent of the intensive care beds in AMBA are occupied, dropping to 55.3 percent if the country total is taken into account.
There are 1,076 COVID-19 patients in ICU beds in Argentina, in hospitals such as the High Complexity Hospital Dr. Luis Federico Leloir, which EFE visited Thursday in the Esteban Echeverría municipality in the province of Buenos Aires, within AMBA.
This is one of the hospitals that have been unused for the last four years and that two-and-a-half months ago began receiving only coronavirus patients, according to hospital sources.
Meanwhile, the government of Alberto Fernández was studying the compulsory lockdown period, which for two weeks has seen businesses progressively reopening, with isolation ending Sunday. EFE-EPA
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