The Mercosur face-to-face presidential summit scheduled for 26th March originally planned to take place in Argentina that currently holds the rotating chair of the block, will be held online because of the sanitary situation in the region.
Argentina pledged on Thursday to manage Bolivia's entry into Mercosur, after both countries relaunched their trade relationship during the official visit of the Argentine Foreign Minister, Felipe Solá, who sees the need to approve the full entry of the Andean country at the next Mercosur summit to be held on March 26.
Tens of thousands on Monday defied coronavirus restrictions, gathering worldwide on International Women's Day to denounce gender violence and inequalities.
Uruguay is very concerned, and threatened, by the situation in the city of Rivera, bordering the Brazilian city of Santana do Livramento, Rio Grande do Sul state, where the number of infections is alarming and continues to grow, while the Intensive Care Centers in the capital Porto Alegre are saturated.
American Airlines has extended the suspension and cancellation of numerous international flights including to regions that have not yet been severely impacted by the coronavirus, such as Latin America. The Fort-Worth-based airline says on 10 March that it is cutting summer international capacity by about 10% and April domestic capacity by 7.5% in response to decreasing demand.
The former Uruguayan president José “Pepe” Mujica criticized the government of Luis Lacalle Pou and assured that the Covid-19 pandemic “helped” to improve his image. ”The pandemic is white (in reference to the color of the ruling party)“ and ”brought a big help“ to the government, said the former president in a radial interview on Wednesday. ”He has no responsibility, but he positioned himself well in the situation and knew how to take advantage of it”, he assured.
Uruguayan president Luis Lacalle Pou addressed Congress on Tuesday to report on his first year and one day in office, underlining the extraordinary 2020 pandemic year which surprised the world, and Uruguay, but he also made several announcements referred to future activities and investments.
The Red Ensign trawler Argos Pereira finally left on Saturday evening for the Falkland Islands to begin the squid season after spending 16 days in Montevideo because of an outbreak of Covid 19 on board, as reported by the Uruguayan Chamber of Foreign Fishing Vessels Agents, CAPE.
Without a great media hype, the first 192,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac arrived in Montevideo in the early hours of Friday morning. However, a police operation was deployed throughout the day to begin distributing the vaccines, which will begin to be administered on Monday, March 1, to a small group of essential workers in different parts of the capital and the interior of the country.
Uruguay will be receiving the first batch of Covid-19 vaccines next Thursday evening and the official inoculation campaign will begin on Monday March first. Over the weekend those in charge of vaccination will be the first to receive the shots, according to president Luis Lacalle Pou.