Pablo Sigal
08/05/2020 - 12:07
- Clarín.com
- Society
The Argentine quarantine takes 139 days, focused mainly on the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. It seems endless . No one knows when it will end. The next landmark is August 16. To shuffle and give again. But what distinguishes the coronavirus in Argentina so that, unlike other countries, you cannot get out of quarantine here ? The answer is nothing. Coronavirus is the same worldwide. What is the explanation then?
A clue is given by an Argentine mathematician who lives in Chicago. Daniel Gervini made a series of predictions and comparisons between the American city in which he resides (more precisely Cook County, with 5 million inhabitants) and the AMBA. Gervini concludes that at the beginning of May, based on the containment measures, they managed to get the contagiousness index (R0) below 1 . Then the number of daily infections began to decrease. It was a successful quarantine.
Why does R0 quarantine? Because people interact less and then the chances of contagion decrease. The stricter the quarantine, the lower the R0 should go. In Argentina, the ninth stage of confinement has passed and still never, since the pandemic began, was it possible for this index to drop to 1. That is, kings of the quarantine with results that were not very effective in that sense.
It is known that when R0 falls below 1, the curve has reached its peak and the number of daily cases begins to decrease . Gervini concludes that the confinement measures served in the AMBA to stretch the curve, flatten it , but not to lower the rate of contagion to a level that finally allows the exit of the confinement. And this is linked to the first of the seven "deadly sins" that Argentina incurred so that the quarantine had these characteristics.
Sloth
The Preventive and Compulsory Social Isolation (ASPO) was a hybrid in the country with a declared quarantine but little complied with , in which the number of infections remained very high despite the fact that people were supposed to remain in their homes. This had to do with the excessive prolongation: instead of doing a quarantine of shock, stricter and for less time , we opted for a more lax one (from the controls) that became chronic. And this connects with the following capital sin.
Lust
In this case, sin does not have to do with sexual vice, but with the idea of possession. The plan of the Executive Power was based on the idea that it could have society confined for more than four months without threatening the objective sought. Obviously, after a certain time, there begins to be a feeling of citizen rebellion that opposes this unlimited illusion of capturing the popular will, as if it were a hypnotized mass. The apotheosis was, after 135 days of quarantine, the impractical DNU that prohibits social gatherings.
Gluttony
It is closely linked with the above. If there is a successful result to highlight the pandemic in Argentina, it is the low mortality rate that there has been so far. Avoiding deaths was one of the main arguments for renewing the quarantine over and over again. The truth is that deaths occur the same, although in a longer period . Argentina is exceeding 150 daily deaths and has just exceeded 4,000. To follow the example of Cook County, there were 4,900 deaths in a shorter period , but then declined sharply.
Avarice
The false debate "health versus economy" was another of the characteristics of the quarantine that ended up threatening the measure. In reality, it was not economic greed that boycotted the health measure, but the other way around. The lack of control of the quarantine so that it was effective transformed the quarantine into a "monster" that had to continue to be fed as it pleased, without taking into account the damage that this was generating in other aspects. In the short or long term, this will also have an impact on the health of the population and on the increase in deaths.
Go to
Presidential anger when public opinion marked this scenario of priorities so unbalanced and for such a long period was another of the characteristics of the quarantine. The constant was to attribute the ills to the pandemic and not to quarantine , in a Manichean attitude, to continue to listen exclusively to the committee of official infectologists without incorporating other voices into the debate and the alternative search for solutions.
Envy
At this point the relationship between the province of Buenos Aires and the City was basically played . The Federal Capital was always more predisposed to release the quarantine, but it collided again and again against the Buenos Aires stocks, and the presidential will ended up turning the balance towards that side of General Paz. This also had its political reading: a previous departure of Rodríguez Larreta from ASPO, while Kicillof was still “locked up” in the GBA, would have meant the supposed success of one and the failure of the other.
Pride
The famous "films" are a little the synthesis of this seventh and last capital sin. Throughout the different presentations and renewals of the quarantine, there were comparisons with other countries that generated short circuits: with Sweden, with Chile, with Spain. Argentina's strong point was always marked by comparing it with other international scenarios, sometimes not comparable. That national strength was the slowness of the curve to avoid a sharp peak. But that same slowness is what has turned quarantine into a frayed and fully amortized tool , while R0 remains above 1.
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