Via La Prensa Austral in Punta Arenas: Brote de Covid-19 en Base O’Higgins anticipa término de campaña científica [COVID-19 outbreak at O'Higgins Base anticipates end of scientific campaign] Excerpt from the Google translation:
The Covid-19 outbreak at the O'Higgins Army Base in Antarctica, when 26 military personnel and 10 civilian workers were reported positive for the virus, was news that traveled the world yesterday because the white territory was the only continent free of the pandemic.
The fact, advanced a week ago by La Prensa Austral when two positive cases were recorded in Army troops, disembarked in Punta Arenas by the naval ship Sergeant Aldea, whose institution recorded another three positive cases in the ship's crew, has been handled for more than a week by the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense without an official pronouncement until the closing of this information. Only the Navy, first, and the Army later, made official the existence of positive cases.
Even the Uruguayan Ministry of National Defense reported yesterday that within the Uruguayan contingent there are no positive cases or contacts at the Artigas Base, which said country has on King George Island, which is almost 5 kilometers from Chile's Frei Base.
The newspaper El País del Uruguay reported that last Thursday Defense reported on its website that the head of the Artigas Base, Colonel Emilio Obelar pointed out that “in March we received a statement from the Antarctic Treaty informing us that we could not approach other bases. When we went to the airport to look for cargo, we would wear a mask, gloves and a tunic ”.
As a result of the alert, due to the outbreak that occurred at the O'Higgins Base, on Friday the Health authority sent six officials for the day who took PCR samples from the 102 people who remained on King George Island distributed in the bases Frei de la Fach, Professor Escudero of the Chilean Antarctic Institute, staff of the Navy, personnel of the General Directorate of Aeronautics and of the Dap airline company.
All the tests were negative, except that the monitoring also controlled another group of 9 people who had arrived from the Yelcho station and who were part of a science group from Inach. There is one positive case sent to quarantine there, as are the eight close contacts, all of whom were evacuated to Punta Arenas on Monday.
Until yesterday there was no reaction from Inach to the situation, indicating that an official pronouncement was expected from the Ministry of National Defense. However, it turned out that to avoid new cases it was decided to suspend future trips of researchers who would carry out work in Antarctica between January and February.
