
Buenos Aires City is still at the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina, with the highest number of deaths and cases per capita compared to any other region in the country, but over the last few weeks it has finally shown some signs that it might be stopping the pace of new contagions.
While new daily cases have been exploding upwards in Greater Buenos Aires and the rest of the country, BA City’s figures have shown no growth, and even mildly declined over the last month. Although it is still too early to confirm a change in trend, this could be a sign that the much-sought “flattening of the curve” of new cases is finally a possibility in the capital, contrary to the rest of the country where cases are still growing fast.
The fact that test positivity rates are going down in the city is also a reason for encouragement, as it suggests that the reduction is not the result of increased under-detection, even if international standards still recommend much-lower positivity figures. In the nearby province, as the graphic above shows, the growth in tests is still not fast enough to make up for the growth in cases, and positivity has kept climbing to unprecedented highs, making it much harder to trace and isolate those who are infected.