Health & Science

• Monday, October 26th 2020 - 09:40 UTC

  Uruguay will not host tourists this summer season; borders will remain “technically closed”

  

  “Dear brothers from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, the rest of the region and the world, this summer we will not be able to host you as we do every summer. I want you to know that it is a very painful decision, because as Uruguayans and hosts we love to receive you and there is nothing we would love most than to share the summer season with you”, is the video message from Uruguay's Tourist minister German Cardoso to the potential visitors.

• Monday, October 26th 2020 - 09:10 UTC

  Researcher study of seabird ecosystem shift in the Falklands

  

  Roughly 5,000 years ago, seabirds colonized the Falkland Islands in record numbers. The new research – published in the journal Science Advances – suggests the seabirds arrived around the same time that the South Atlantic cooled, and their arrival shifted the ecosystems on the Falkland Islands.

• Monday, October 26th 2020 - 08:00 UTC

  Coronavirus: Spain declares national state of emergency and night time curfew

  

  Spain has declared a national state of emergency and imposed a night-time curfew in an effort to help control a new spike in Covid-19 infections. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the curfew, between the hours of 23:00 and 06:00, would come into force on Sunday.

• Sunday, October 25th 2020 - 09:02 UTC

  Colombia joins the “select” club of countries with a million confirmed cases of Covid-19

  

  Colombia reached 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases on Saturday, becoming the second country in Latin America to report that number in less than a week. The nation of 50 million saw cases peak in August and has seen a decline since but still continues to register around 8,000 new infections a day.

• Sunday, October 25th 2020 - 08:54 UTC

  Argentina resumes domestic flights with strict health protocols

  

  Argentina resumed regular domestic flights this week after an interruption of seven months due to the Covid-19 pandemic, although within a format of restrictions and health protocols limiting operations.

• Saturday, October 24th 2020 - 09:16 UTC

  Brazil's health regulator allows the import of six million doses of a coronavirus vaccine from China

  

  Brazil's health regulator has authorized the import from China of a potential vaccine against the coronavirus, just days after President Jair Bolsonaro insisted he wouldn't allow doses to be shipped from the Asian nation.

• Friday, October 23rd 2020 - 09:20 UTC

  Scientists found plastic debris in the digestive track of southern right whale stranded in Argentina

  

  Scientists found plastic debris in the digestive tract of a southern right whale stranded in Argentina, according to a study from the Southern Right Whale Health Monitoring Program, co-led by the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine; and Instituto de Conservación de Ballenas in Argentina.

• Friday, October 23rd 2020 - 08:50 UTC

  The risk of Covid-19 spread in flights “very low” but “cannot be ruled out”

  

  The risk of COVID-19 spreading on flights appears “very low” but cannot be ruled out, despite studies showing only a small number of cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

• Friday, October 23rd 2020 - 08:35 UTC

  China makes remote video inspections of sanctioned Brazilian slaughterhouses

  

  Chinese officials carried out a remote inspection of Brazilian slaughterhouses whose exports to the Asian country have been suspended due to Covid-19 cases among employees.

• Thursday, October 22nd 2020 - 09:35 UTC

  Death of Brazilian volunteer in clinical trials of Oxford Covid-19 vaccine triggers controversy

  

  A volunteer taking part in clinical trials of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University has died in Brazil, officials announced on Wednesday, though media reports said he had received a placebo, not the test vaccine.