While the world watches with concern as new coronavirus outbreaks emerge in countries that suffered from the first wave of the pandemic, in Latin America, coronavirus has already infected more than two million people.
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Uruguay had managed to control the pandemic until the past weekend, when the Treinta y Tres Department or administrative subdivision found 37 new cases. Three days ago, the country had only 12 active cases of coronavirus.
"I am going to talk to the whole country: we are relaxing a bit," President Luis Lacalle Pou said at a press conference.
"This forces us to pause, to go back as much as we need to. The truth is that we do it with regret, but it is our duty," he added.
The president announced that school classes, which began on June 1 in the country, would be suspended in the department’s capital, the city of Treinta y Tres, until July 3.
There were also five new cases in Uruguay's capital Montevideo and a city called Canelones. In total, Uruguay has recorded 882 cases and 25 deaths.
Brazil has more than one million cases and has registered more than 51,000 deaths from COVID-19.
Mexico also registered more than 4,700 new infections in 24 hours, reaching over 185,000 cases and more than 22,000 deaths. In Mexico City, where markets, restaurants and other businesses were scheduled to reopen on Monday, authorities decided to maintain the lockdown for another week.
Chile surpassed Spain in the number of coronavirus cases on Monday.
With a population of 18 million, the total number of people who have been infected by the virus in the country has risen to 246,963, according Monday´s report. With a population of about 47 million inhabitants, Spain has reached 246,504 COVID-19 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Peru recorded 2,511 new cases of the coronavirus, its slowest day of COVID-19 growth in six weeks, the government said Monday, as shopping malls opened.
Peru is the country with the second highest number of cases in Latin America after Brazil and the seventh in the world.
The number of coronavirus cases in the country has risen to 257,447 and the number of deaths stands at 8,223. ■