Argentina is restricting circulation and closing non-essential businesses until the end of May in an effort to check the rapid spread of Covid-19.
The renewed lockdown measures take effect tomorrow across large swaths of the country, where the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus are among the world's highest.
"We are living the worst moment since this pandemic began," President Alberto Fernandez said last night in announcing the new restrictions.
Non-essential workers can go out near their homes between 6am and 6pm local time, and there will be strict controls on entering and leaving the city of Buenos Aires.
All social activities and indoor and outdoor sporting events — including the national sport football — have also been prohibited, and schools have been ordered shut.
Argentina's borders remain closed to non-residents and international flights continue to be limited to the arrival of 2,000 passengers per day, while domestic flights are limited to essential workers.
Jab demands
A vaccination campaign is moving at a glacial pace, sparking labor unrest and protests that have affected oil and gas production, fuel distribution and grains exports in recent weeks. Back-to-back port strikes this week highlight the social pressure.
So far Argentina has applied 10.5mn doses of vaccines—a combination of Russia's Sputnik V, China's Sinopharm and Covishield, the Indian version of the AstraZeneca jab, but less than 5pc of its population of around 45mn has been fully inoculated.
Argentina has reported 3.45mn Covid-19 infections and 72,699 deaths since the pandemic began.
