Coronavirus: more than 8,000 dead in Peru

The toll of the coronavirus pandemic in Peru surpassed 8,000 dead on Sunday, announced the Ministry of Health, a few hours before the reopening of Peruvian shopping centers. With 184 deaths in the past 24 hours, the total death toll has reached 8,045, and the number of contagions has risen to 254,936 with 3,598 new cases, the ministry said. The bar of 7,000 dead was crossed by Peru last Tuesday.

It is in this context that shopping centers across Peru will be reopened on Monday, after 99 days of confinement, a reopening announced by the government on June 15. The gradual resumption of commercial activities aims to revive the national economy, which collapsed by around 40% in April due to the pandemic. The economic consequences of the pandemic have so far deprived more than two million Peruvians of their jobs.

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Peru, a country of 33 million people, has suffered since the beginning of June an average daily of 4,800 new infections, a figure lower than the daily average for May. This was underlined on Tuesday the Minister of Health, Victor Zamora. "Our epidemic is showing a decrease," he said at a virtual press conference, "the speed of contagion has decreased . "

Peru is currently the second Latin American country in terms of contamination behind Brazil, and the third in terms of death behind Brazil and Mexico. There were 10,566 patients with Covid-19 in Peruvian hospitals on Sunday, according to ministry data. The health system is on the brink of collapse and facilities in particular lack oxygen to treat severe forms of the disease. About 70% of the Peruvian cases of Covid-19 are found in Lima and in the port of Callao, near the capital, where one third of the population of Peru lives.