COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina

COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina
(from the top, left to right) Contact tracing plan Detectar taking place in Buenos Aires to find patients with COVID-19 Cleaning the Buenos Aires Underground A bicyclist and a police officer wearing masks in Santa Fe A vial of the first component of the Sputnik V vaccine in the hands of an Argentine paramedic
Disease	COVID-19
Virus strain	SARS-CoV-2
Location	Argentina
First outbreak	Wuhan, Hubei, China
Index case	Buenos Aires
Arrival date	3 March 2020 (4 years, 2 months and 2 weeks)
Confirmed cases	10,131,586[1]
Recovered	9,914,485[2]
Deaths	130,857[1]
Fatality rate	1.3%
Vaccinations	41,529,058[1] (total vaccinated) 34,900,613[1] (fully vaccinated) 116,978,521[1] (doses administered)
Government website
Boletines epidemiológicos

The COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As of 17 May 2024, a total of 10,131,586 people were confirmed to have been infected, and 130,857 people were known to have died because of the virus.^[3]

On 3 March 2020, the virus was confirmed to have spread to Argentina.^[4][5][6][7] On 7 March 2020, the Ministry of Health confirmed the country's first documented death, a 64-year-old man who had travelled to Paris, France, who also had other health conditions; the case was only confirmed as positive after the patient's demise.^[8]

On 19 March 2020, a nationwide lockdown was established in Argentina.^[9][10] The lockdown was lifted throughout all the country, excepting the Greater Buenos Aires urban area (where 31.9% of the country's population live),^[11] on 10 May, with Greater Buenos Aires locked down until 17 July, where the lockdown was due to be gradually loosened in several stages to lead to the return to normality;^[12] restrictions were extended several times until 8 November 2020.^[13] During the second wave, another nationwide lockdown took place from 22 to 31 May 2021.^[14]

Responses to the outbreak have included restrictions on commerce and movement, closure of borders, and the closure of schools and educational institutions.^[15] Clusters of infections and deaths have occurred in nursing homes, prisons and other detention centers, and urban areas.^[16][17] The number of tests increased over time, although there were some concerns as there was less testing than in other countries of the region such as Chile and Peru.^[18] Even so, the government's responses to the pandemic were among the best received by the population in the region during the early stages of the pandemic.^[19]