Uruguay Hasn't Curved COVID-19 Despite Vaccinating 28%

Uruguay holds the higher death rate in the American region for 14 days in a row despite its express vaccination campaign, which has reached over a million people completely immunized.

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"The last report reads that eight out of ten intubated patients die. This is a really alarming figure, " says the Intensive-Care doctor Jose Luis Fajardo.

The country was among the last ones on the continent to start the vaccination. Still, it has shown great capacity to recover the initial waste of time, and now it is reporting 28 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. Moreover, another 869.913 citizens wait for the second and final dose of the Coronavac, Pfizer, or AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to finish the immunization process.

However, this high vaccination rate has not been enough to tackle the pandemic, and some people believe that more health measures are necessary to support the country's efforts to curve the virus down.

"There is no awareness; people do not believe this is real, people outside the health facilities think this is all a lie. So, therefore, they do not take care of themselves and end up here," said the ICU nurse Patricia Figueroa.

Uruguay's President Luis Lacalle Pou has hesitated to establish curfews or tight quarantines despite doctor's union claims, arguing that a halt on the main economic activities could bring more problems than positive results.

As of Sunday morning, Uruguay had reported 312,703 COVID-19 cases and 4,583 related deaths, figures that are on the rise due to a daily average of over 4.000 infections.