MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Case Zero of Delta variant dies in Argentine province of Cordoba

A 62-year-old Bolivian citizen residing in the Argentine city of Córdoba who gained notoriety as the Delta variant “Case Zero,” has died Sunday morning after being hospitalized for three weeks.

The cause of death was stated as “respiratory failure caused by severe bilateral pneumonia” according to hospital documents.

The man had failed to observe the mandatory isolation after arriving into the country on July 29, thus spreading the Delta variant of the coronavirus among his friends and near ones.

He was under criminal investigation for having allegedly caused 35 of the 60 Delta strain infections reported so far in the province.

The man was said to have attended a restaurant with his family as well shopping malls during the period when he should have been isolated. At the end of last month and after the first infections were known, Córdoba health authorities had to isolate some 800 people.

A Special Prosecution Unit known as UFES was investigating his case, which could have earned him a prison sentence of between 3 to 15 years.

Over 1,000 people are under mandatory isolation in the province of Cordoba and five schools have been closed after the local outbreak of the Delta variant, following large-scale testing deployments.

Hugo Pizzi, the medical adviser to Cordoba's provincial government, said the deceased was a “vaccine denier” and called him “a terrorist” for his actions following his arrival into the province from Buenos Aires Jorge Newbery airport after an international flight from Peru.

Cordoba's Health Ministry reported a new case of coronavirus contagion with the Delta variant in the last 24 hours. The patient was linked to a close contact of another person who returned from a trip from abroad, and who is already in due isolation.