MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine province of Córdoba makes isolation at hotels compulsory for travelers who test positive on arrival

Córdoba's Patient Zero has been hospitalized with pneumonia

Health authorities in the Argentine province of Córdoba have ruled that all travelers who test positive for the Delta variant of the coronavirus are to isolate at hotels, following a recent local outbreak.

Cordoba health authorities have established a new protocol providing for strict monitoring of those infected, close cohabiting contacts and close non-cohabiting contacts, while travelers who enter Córdoba and are detected as positive for Delta will be sent to hotels at the province's expense, it was announced Monday.

All positive cases confirmed by laboratory or epidemiological link must be isolated for 14 days if they presented mild symptoms, or 21 days if they required hospitalization. They will also be subject to a clinical follow-up every 72 hours.

People who live under the same roof with someone infected with the Delta variant must be tested when this positive case is confirmed and isolated for 18 days, during which time they will be subject to a close follow up.

Meanwhile, people who have been in contact with a positive are to observe 14 days in isolation: those living with the close contact must also isolate themselves for that time.

The “zero case” of the Delta variant in Córdoba has been hospitalized for acute bilateral pneumonia, it was reported Sunday. In addition to the 62-year-old man who failed to isolate himself after arriving from Peru, there is also a woman hospitalized with pneumonia, local health authorities have reported.

The man returned from Peru on July 19 and his test came out positiver a week later. He arrived through Buenos Aires' Jorge Newbery airport and then mingled irrespectful of quarantine rules, which has spreaded the variant throughout the province.

Last Friday a woman who had been is in close contact with Patient Zero had also been admitted into a hospital with pneumonia.

Five people have been detained and 800 others placed under isolation due to the Delta variant infections. Of those placed under custody under charges of violating restrictive measures and spreading the virus, there were two Peruvians citizens and three Argentines. All defendants are being prosecuted by the Emergency State Attorney Unit (UFES).

One of the Peruvian nationals had violated mandatory isolation after arriving in the country from abroad, while the other was a direct contact.

The three Argentines knowingly failed to observe a mandatory quarantine after their swabs were positive for Covid 19 in its Delta variant.

UFES sources have confirmed “all cases are part of the same epidemiological nexus. The five were arrested and housed in a hotel arranged by the epidemiology area of the Ministry of Health of the Province of Córdoba.”

Since the pandemic began, 6,135 people have died in Cordoba, 828 of them in the month of July.

Meanwhile, health authorities of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires have performed last week a house-by-house search of possible patients infected with the Delta variant throught the Monserrat neighborhood after tests showed there were two people with Covid-19.

In the midst of the controversy over infections with the Delta variant of coronavirus in Córdoba, the Buenos Aires Government confirmed Friday that it is studying whether two cases of that strain identified in the City were produced by community circulation.

So far, 41 people have been placed under isolation for being a close contact with one of the cases. Those isolated had no symptoms and were reported to be evolving well.

The first case was a child with symptoms on July 20 and whose sample was sequenced in the virology laboratory of the Ricardo Gutiérrez Children's Hospital. The other case was a 32-year-old adult.