Santiago:
The coronavirus has landed in Antarctica, the final continent previously cost-free from COVID-19, Chile’s military stated this week, as wellness and army officials scrambled to clear out and quarantine employees from a remote study station surrounded by ocean and icebergs.
Chile’s armed forces stated at least 36 people today had been infected at its Bernardo O’Higgins base, like 26 army personnel and 10 civilian contractors conducting upkeep at the base.
The permanently staffed study station, operated by Chile’s army, lies close to the tip of a peninsula in northernmost Antarctica, overlooking a bay normally dotted with icebergs.
Base personnel “are already properly isolated and constantly monitored” by wellness authorities in Magallanes, in Chilean Patagonia, the army stated, adding there had so far been no complications.
Research and military stations in Antarctica – amongst the most remote in the planet – had gone to extraordinary lengths in current months to maintain the virus out, canceling tourism, scaling back activities and employees and locking down facilities.
Researchers with the British Antarctic Survey estimate about 1,000 people today at 38 stations across the frozen continent had safely navigated the southern hemisphere winter without having incident. But an uptick in travel to and from the area this spring and early summer time have heightened infection danger.
An Army press officer stated the initial COVID-19 situations had been reported in mid-December, when two soldiers fell ill.
The Magallanes area, 1 of the closest populated regions to Antarctica and take-off point for a lot of boats and planes headed to the continent, is amongst the hardest-hit in Chile.
Much of the location, blasted by cold winds off the ocean, mountains and glaciers, has been below quarantine restrictions for months.
Chile’s Navy reported it also had detected 3 situations of COVID-19 amongst 208 crew members of a ship that had sailed in the Antarctic area in between Nov. 27 and Dec. 10.
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