Pablo Sigal
10/24/2020 5:27 PM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 10/24/2020 5:27 PM
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Argentina's health risk has been split in two.
The present is no exception: while some provinces today reach record levels of contagion, the situation in the metropolitan area contrasts with that reality and consolidates a
marked decrease
after having exceeded the peak.
Clarín
relieved the situation of the Federal Capital and the Conurbano as
of September 15.
That day the City of Buenos Aires reached the peak of cases.
During that week,
the average number of infections
every 24 hours was
1,123.
More than a month after that time, in this last week the same average was
657 cases
: the drop was
41 percent.
The province of Buenos Aires exceeded the peak of infections on
October 3
.
But the district is so vast that it is not possible to speak of a single and homogeneous territory: one thing is the Conurbano and another, the Interior of Buenos Aires.
While the number of infections in the Interior has grown
by 11 percent
since that date
, in the Conurbano the decrease has been
21 percent
.
At the provincial level there was a
9 percent
drop
.
It is important to note how the participation of the Conurbano and the interior of Buenos Aires has been in the final account of the Province: until the beginning of August, 93 percent of the cases corresponded to the area closest to the Federal Capital and
only 7 percent
were it searched
beyond the third cordon
.
But its incidence was growing gradually and now represents
34 percent of the total
infections in the district.
The key that supports this data is in the famous and lately forgotten R, already known to all as the contagiousness index.
While the curve is rising, this indicator is located
above the value 1
.
When the curve decreases, the same value is accommodated below unity.
v 1.5
Contagion curves by province
Tap to explore the data
Source:
Ministry of Health
Infographic:
Clarín
How much is the R at the moment in the City, the Greater Buenos Aires and the province of Buenos Aires?
The authorities of each district confirmed to
Clarín
the figures: in the City today it is
0.95
.
This means that
100 infected infect 95.
And it is what effectively marks a descent of the curve, but slow.
The lower the R, the faster the decrease in infections.
In the Conurbano, the R today is
0.92
.
It is practically the same indicator as that of the City and, also, the explanation that in 20 days, from the Buenos Aires peak, the district has decreased
its cases
by 21 percent
, against
41 percent
of the City within a period of
38 days
.
That is, almost twice the time elapsed and twice the percentage decrease in cases.
In the interior of Buenos Aires, on the other hand, the R is
1.11.
The reality of the AMBA contrasts with that of some provinces.
From the moment the City began to travel down the slope there were increases that in some cases
exceeded 200 percent
in daily reports.
This is the case of Tucumán, which went from having values of
468 cases every 24 hours to 1,477
, which shows a rise of
215 percent.
Chinstrap workers in a refrigerator in La Plata.
Photo: Xinhua
The second province with the highest increase was Córdoba, where the curve accelerates today even faster than in Santa Fe. Córdoba had an increase of
158 percent in the last 38 days
, while Santa Fe in the same period rose
140 percent
.
Mendoza rises but slower, with a variation of
48 percent.
The slow descent of the AMBA and the strong increase in the Interior is what prevents Argentina from finally exceeding its national peak, something that has already happened
in almost the entire planet
.
The time between one contagion and another throughout the country - a key indicator to determine when the peak will happen -
has not stopped falling
in recent weeks.
It is the MTBI (Mean Time Between Infections) index, produced by the University of Tres de Febrero, and that until October 21 indicated
a contagion every 4.69 seconds
.
On September 15, the day the City peaked, there was a contagion every 6.73 seconds.
This acceleration accounts for the increasing accumulation of cases at the national level.
Argentina is already one of the countries with
the lowest MTBI in the world
and continues to advance: it has only been surpassed by
South Africa
(4.62 seconds),
Brazil
(1.35 seconds), the
United States
(1.24 seconds) and
India
( 0.63 seconds).
These are the values recorded by those countries when they exceeded the peak.
The last to reach it was India, on October 15.
When will the peak come in our country?
It is difficult to predict, but there is a clue: the spikes of contagions in Santa Fe and Córdoba are expected for the month between
mid-October and mid-November
.
In that time ahead, the number of cases of the AMBA will surely have also had a more marked decline.
From this alignment of the planets, the news that a whole country is waiting will finally emerge.
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