Will the Copa America – the equivalent of the Euro on the South American continent – come to an end? The competition is in any case marked by the Covid-19 which is wreaking havoc there. The virus has already forced to relocate at the last moment the competition in Brazil in a country bruised by the epidemic. In the past few hours, a total of 41 people have tested positive for coronavirus among all delegations participating in the tournament. Information given to the Brazilian Ministry of Health.
Sunday, the date of the inaugural match in Brasilia, “41 cases of Covid-19 were reported, including 31 among players and members of delegations, and ten among service providers hired for the event,” said in a statement the Ministry. The latter did not detail the number of cases in each team.
The day before the starting whistle, the Conmebol, the South American football confederation, had detected the appearance of outbreaks of the virus, which had struck 13 members of the Venezuelan team, and four of that of Bolivia. Then, two cases had been confirmed within the Colombian team. Forty-one positive cases is obviously huge. But that remains a tiny part compared to the number of tests that have been carried out in recent days around the delagations. At the last score, on the night of Monday to Tuesday, 2,927 PCR tests were carried out among the delegations and groups taking part in the tournament. Positive cases represent 1.4% of tests.
Despite the absence of the public, the trip of the Copa America to Brazil after the withdrawals of Colombia and then Argentina aroused strong criticism, given the health situation of the country: the South American giant has accumulated nearly half a million deaths from the coronavirus.
