New Covid-19 Cases Started to Decline in Hard-Hit Latin America
Experts credit ‘bubbles’ of immunity, face-mask wearing for decrease in daily deaths and infections across most of region
By Samantha Pearson and Luciana Magalhaes
Oct. 2, 2020 5:30 am ET
SÃO PAULO—The Covid-19 pandemic has ravaged Latin America, killing more than 300,000 people, erasing years of social and economic gains and plunging millions back into poverty. But from Mexico to Brazil, a recent slowdown in new cases and fatalities is raising cautious hopes that the hard-hit region might be turning a corner.
While the U.S. has struggled with an increase in new Covid-19 cases over the past two weeks:
Brazil has seen a reduction of more than 40% since July.
Brazil’s daily death toll, though still one of the world’s highest at more than 700 people, has also fallen almost 40% over the same period.
Mexico has reported fewer than 600 deaths a day for the past six weeks, down from 800 at a June peak.
New cases in the region’s third most populous country, Colombia, have fallen about 40% since August, while the daily number of fatalities has halved.
“Across the region we’ve seen a high level of deaths and cases since the end of May but these numbers are now slowly starting to fall,” said Eliseu Waldman, an epidemiologist at the University of São Paulo.
wsj.com |
