
Dozens of Argentine-flagged private boats have been left stranded after mooring at the Uruguayan most exclusive port of Punta del Este because there is no COVID-19 corridor for their voyage back home, it was reported.

For some years now, luxury vacationers are increasingly enjoying Eastern Uruguay's coastline. Beach towns such as José Ignacio, Manantiales or Miamesque Punta del Este are hosts to thousands of tourists that are giving an air of increasing exclusivity to these places.

Half a century ago, on 12 January 1972, a seaplane from the Argentine Air Force landed in Stanley harbor establishing the first regular flight between Comodoro Rivadavia and the Falkland Islands. From then onwards, ”sanitary, passenger and general cargo (mail, fresh food, and medicines) became regular flights”.

The Falkland Islands Government and LATAM Airlines Group have denied that a date for the resumption of passenger flights to South America has been agreed upon. Recently international media reports had suggested LATAM Brazil had requested regular flights connecting Mount Pleasant airport and São Paulo to resume by the start of February.

Norwegian Cruise Line which this week was expected to begin trips along with the Argentine and Chilean coasts, as well as Antarctica cruises, has surprisingly announced it was cancelling its South American operations this season because of covid-19 related circumstances which have forced the company to reschedule its global plans.

Effective Jan. 12, the Government of Paraguay will require at least two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine to anyone who wishes to enter the country, it was announced, except for people who have been treated with single-dose drugs.

Multiple cases of COVID-19 are leaving companies understaffed but when it comes down to airline services it becomes far more notorious because scores of angry passengers fill airports everywhere.

With 18% of its crews on sick leave due to COVID-19, Latam Airlines Colombia has been forced to cancel some 53 domestic flights between Jan. 8 and 16. Most of the cases were said to be of the Omicron variant.

Some 3,000 passengers saw their Canary Islands-bound cruise definitively halted on Monday in Lisbon following an outbreak of Covid 19 in the AIDAnova vessel. At least 64 people tested positive for the virus while on the ship, which is owned by the German company Aida Cruises.

Brazil's National Sanitary Surveillance Agency, ANVISA has advised the suspension of the cruise season because of several covid-19 outbreaks onboard pleasure vessels sailing along the Brazilian coast.