KEY FIGURES

4.8M CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES IN LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN AS OF 2 AUGUST

REGIONAL: COVID-19

As of 2 August, PAHO/WHO report 4,843,806 and 197,811 deaths in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as 3,206,760 recovered cases.

KEY FIGURES

$73.7M SOCIO-ECONOMIC RESPONSE PLAN LAUNCHED IN COSTA RICA

CENTRAL AMERICA: COVID-19

GUATEMALA

The Government announced on 26 July that Guatemala would transition to a tiered municipal health alert system to determine localized restrictions following more than 130 days of nationwide confinement measures. The area-specific risk system will use rates of confirmed cases, positive tests and number of tests as criteria to be evaluated and updated every 15 days. Evaluations will yield either a red, orange, yellow or green level of alert, with red alerts being the most restrictive and green alerts the least.

COSTA RICA

The UN in Costa Rica published their COVID-19 socio-economic response plan for US$73.7 million, which focuses on sustainable recovery based on health, social protection and basic services, economic reactivation, macroeconomic and multilateral response and social cohesion and resilience. The plan, which will use the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a response road map for building back better, indicates that there is currently $25.9 million in available funding (35.1 per cent of required funding) for the 154 total activities that make up the plan.

KEY FIGURES

170K VULNERABLE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE ALONG THE BRAZIL-COLOMBIA-PERU BORDER

SOUTH AMERICA: COVID-19

The UN in Brazil, Colombia and Peru and rights groups in Ecuador are calling for scaled-up COVID-19 response at their shared border, an area home to 170,000 vulnerable indigenous people. The UN is especially concerned with limited health response capacities in these areas, while Ecuadors Alliance of Human Rights Organizations is concerned for groups along the triple Colombia-Ecuador-Peru border, some of whom are exposed to armed conflict. The UN is supporting response along the Brazil-Colombia-Peru triple border, with agencies providing technical support, services and supplies to relevant departmental health authorities in those three countries.

PERU

Per the Ministry of Health, 25.3 per cent of people in Lima and Callao may be COVID-19 positive, or some 2.7 million people. The Ministry says that the information, part of a technical study on COVID-19 prevalence, would allow them to estimate the susceptible population, as well as how long it takes to achieve herd immunity. The Ministry also notes the data will allow them to tailor vaccination programs when a vaccine becomes available.

Read more:

Latin America & The Caribbean - Weekly Situation Update (27 July - 2 August 2020) as of 2 August 2020 - Bahamas - ReliefWeb