MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mask mandates decreed in Bolivia as school year starts amid Covid-19 fears

An increase in Covid-19 cases has also been reported in North and Northeast Brazil

Bolivian authorities decreed schoolchildren should wear facemasks and adopt other sanitary measures such as alcohol gel and hand washing as they return to school Monday to prevent respiratory diseases (i.e. Covid-19) which have been reported to be on the rise.

 Education Minister Omar Véliz said he instructed local principals to adjust their health policies to local weather conditions and insisted it was paramount that all public and private schools implemented these guidelines. In 2023, Bolivia's Education Ministry recorded over 3 million pupils, a figure which is expected to be higher in 2025, given the demographic growth.

Véliz also explained that abrupt temperature changes due to heavy rains had made maintenance in educational buildings difficult. Hence the risks for students. President Luis Arce Catacora will ”inaugurate Monday, February 3, the school activities of the 2025 management, in an educational unit in the municipality of Tiquipaya, in the department of Cochabamba (center),” Véliz also noted.

Brazil

Meanwhile, Brazilian health authorities reported last week that at least 287 people had died so far this year from severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) caused by Covid-19, Agencia Brasil reported. The total number of severe cases with a confirmed diagnosis of the disease is already close to 900. The data are from the Infogripe Newsletter of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and reflect notifications to the Health Ministry until Jan. 25.

While SARS refers to the aggravation of flu symptoms with compromised pulmonary function, most cases stem from a viral infection, and almost 52% of the positive results for any virus this year were of Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) with coronaviruses accounting for 78.7% of the lethal infections.

Brazilian specialists do not rule out the possibility of a new, more transmissible variant of Covid-19 spreading particularly in the States of Acre, Amazonas, Pará, Amapá, Rondônia, Tocantins, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte, and Sergipe.

The incidence of severe cases is higher among small children and the elderly, and mortality occurs mostly in the elderly. However, the survey alerts that in Amazonas and Rondônia an increase of SARS has also been observed among young people and adults.